2 Fun Ways For Your Preschooler to Learn Math in Minutes

Teach children to sort and classify, compare and contrast, and use ordinal counting words with these two easy math lessons! The math games from Math in Minutes will have kids learning how to do math while having fun.

1. Ordinal Counting

Objectives

Children will:

1. Use and understand ordinal counting terms such as “first” through “fifth” to describe relative position in a sequence.

How to Do It

• Do this activity when all the children are in a group together, such as when they are lining up to leave the classroom.
• Ask the children to line up facing the room (not the door), and challenge them to name the first five children in line, saying, for example, “Sarah is first, Nathan is second, Carrie is third, Ti is fourth, and Casey is fifth.”
• Encourage the children to turn around, face the door, and repeat the numbering process. Once they get the order correct, move the children on to the next activity!

Take It Up a Level

Try doing variations on this activity. Ask a group of children, for example, to get in line in order by height, shortest to tallest, and ask them who is first, second, third, fourth, and fifth. Another variation is to ask the children to order themselves based on the dominant colors they are wearing. For example: red is first, blue is second, green is third, yellow is fourth, and white is fifth. Also, challenge the first and third children to bow to each other, then the second and the fourth, and finally, ask the fifth children to bow to the other children.

2. Crayon Color Bar Graph

Materials

Crayons

Bar graph sheet

Objectives

Children will:

1. Sort and classify materials by one or more characteristics.
2. Compare and contrast objects.
3. Construct graphs using real objects, or pictures, to answer questions.
4. Interpret and use information from graphs.
5. Collect data in an organized way.

How to Do It

• Do this activity with groups of three to four children.
• Give each child three or four crayons.
• Encourage each child to examine each crayon and count the number of letters in the name of each color (for example: red has 3 letters; green has 5).
• Then, ask the children to put the crayon next to the correct number on the graph, as shown on the graph above.
• After the children understand how to do this activity, set it up in the Math or Library Center or for the children to explore independently.

For more easy math activities for children ages 4-8, check out Math in Minutes.