1. Shapes - Name shapes while drawing them.  Use string or yarn and place it on top of the shape that you draw with your child. Find items in your home or magazines that have the same shape. Make a list of things that are circles, squares, triangles.
   
   
2. Counting - Use toys, cards, or small snacks like cereal, small carrot sticks to count.  Move the items from the left to the right while counting, or from the top to the bottom.  Count slowly as you or your child touches the item and moves it.
   
   
3. More Counting - Encourage counting past 10 and 20 by seeing how many times your child can hop, jump, bounce a ball, toss a ball into a basket.  You write down their record number, now they have a goal to do more than they did before while learning new numbers and counting past 10 or 20.
   
   
4. Quick Facts - Use playing cards as easy flash cards. Use the numbered cards to practice  addition, then subtraction, multiplication and division.
   
   
5. Piggy Bank - Start a family change jar, show your child how to match the coins by size. Now put the coins in order of value, pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters.  Write 1 cent, 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents below the stacks. You can practice counting by one, five, 10, and 25.
   
   
6. Piggy Bank 2 - After your child understands the value of the coins, you can make groups of five pennies which is 5 cents and point out that one nickel is also 5 cents. Keep the learning going by increasing the numbers with how 10 pennies are 10 cents, two nickels are 10 cents and one dime is 10 cents.
   
   
7. Cooking and Measuring - Let your child help or watch as you measure items for recipes.  Use a measuring cup when possible and show your child the markings along the side of the cup.  When using the oven or the microwave, show your child how you use the timer. Another way to measure is with time, how long will it take for them to get dressed, take a shower, tie their shoes.  Familiarize your child with the estimate or approximate, and the meanings of each.
   
   
8. Sports and Math - Use the scores and statistics of your favorite team to make charts. For example; wins and losses, rushing yards and throwing yards (football), free throws and 3 pointers (basketball), pitches and strikes (baseball), kicks and goals (soccer).
   
   
9. Pretend Pay - Make a shopping list with your child, put the item prices next to the item, add it up to find the total. Now ask them, what is the total amount of money needed to buy what is in the shopping cart? Pull up a menu from a favorite fast food or restaurant, have them decide what they would order, don’t forget to add a tip if you are pretending to go to a restaurant, and tax. Now, ask them, what is the total amount of money needed to pay for your meal?
   
   
10. Building - You can use legos, blocks, jar lids, anything that can cover a surface or be stacked.  Decide on an area that you want to cover or a tower height you want to reach. Ask, how many legos, blocks, jar lids would you need to cover the total area? Or, how many legos, blocks, jar lids would it take to reach the top of the tower?

Content provided in part from EDINFO Press