One way for young children to practice math skills is through play. Legos, board games (e.g. ThinkFun’s Math Dice Jr.), puzzles (e.g., Fat Brain Toy’s Animal Logic), building kits (e.g., MagFormers), and digital products like LeapFrog’s math cartridges, apps and DVDs all help children practice important math skills. To build practical life math skills, you might consider setting up a pretend store so your daughter can practice counting money, giving change, and staying within a budget. Create math opportunities wherever you are; whether it be at home by following recipes and measuring ingredients to teach children important math skills such as measuring, quantity, and fractions), out and about by counting apples at the supermarket or the number of cars at the gas station or counting how many seconds it takes for the light to turn green. When you make math relevant and engaging, you are teaching your daughter that math is a vital part of our everyday life, and more importantly, that math can be fun!
