Turn on the music, and let the patterns play.

Many also require movement, like circling and falling down in “Ring Around the Rosie”. When you spot the beginning of a pattern, help your child add to it: teaching patterns through music will likely benefit your child’s cognitive abilities down the line.Ĭhildren’s nursery rhymes and music are often based on simple patterns. The steady clap-clap-clap of hands (or bang-BANG-bang-BANG on pots and pans) are linked to your child’s math skills, like counting, sequencing, and spatial awareness. Research shows music and math are intertwined in our brains from an early age. Believe me, it’s a calculation they’re eager to solve. Explain the rhythm of the calendar (days of the week and months in the year are a great start), and ask them to determine how many days, weeks, and months until their birthday. Give your child practice by setting up schedules: 10 minutes cleaning your room, 10 minutes playing. Explain seconds, minutes, and hours in terms your child can understand: she can hold her breath for a few seconds, she can wait a whole minute for your attention, and movies are a whole hour (or two) long. Tick-tock patternsĪs a society, we track time in specific patterns that are useful to teach your living-only-in-the-moment youngster. “Go left, go right, left, right, that’s another pattern.” Encourage your kinetic kid to zig-zag-crouch-leap-wiggle until they’re exhausted - and educated. Jie-Qi (Jackie) Chen, professor of Child Development at the Erikson Institute and co-author of Big Ideas of Early Mathematics: What Teachers of Young Children Need to Know.

Simple movement patterns - the genesis of dance - can turn your next walk into a math and choreography lesson. (Get your child to lay out the fruit pattern, strawberry-banana-grape-orange-strawberry-banana-grape-orange for example then, if your child’s motor skills allow, let him carefully skewer the fruit into patterns, too.) Movin’ and groovin’ patterns Instead of dumping your next fruit salad into a bowl, skewer the fruit onto sticks - shish kabobs! - with repeating patterns. Having pancakes next weekend? Ask your preschooler to create decorative borders around each flapjack by alternating banana slices and chocolate chips. Instruct your perky prep chef to put five pepperoni and three mushrooms on each slice of pizza. Fun with foodįood display is a beautiful and helpful way your child can create patterns. On Pinterest, check out age-appropriate paper snakes and colorful necklaces using cereal and candy as “beads.” Household items, such as ice cube trays and empty egg cartons can also be transformed into work stations where your child can create - and recreate - colorful play dough patterns. Use arts and crafts to challenge kids to create and follow patterns. Your child may love coloring rainbows, which follow a color sequence help them learn and follow the sequence. Legos and colored blocks both lend themselves to creating color patterns: red-red-blue-yellow-red-red-blue-yellow. Luckily, both are hidden in your child’s daily activities and practicing these patterns is incredibly fun.Ĭolor patterns are everywhere, and your child probably loves to spot - and create - them.

What’s more, understanding patterns helps your preschooler’s social development because it instills in them an understanding of the sequence of everyday routines, such as taking turns while playing or following school rules, such as raise your hand, wait to be called on, share what you have to say.Īt this age, there are two types of patterns to look for and practice: repeating patterns (like red-blue-red-blue-red) and growing patterns (like small, medium, large). According to Zero to Three, a national nonprofit focused on early childhood development and learning, “ Patterns help children learn to make predictions, to understand what comes next, to make logical connections, and to use reasoning skills.” Those arrangements of colors, shapes, gestures, sounds, images, and numbers are a crucial concept for young kids and contributes heavily to their early math understanding. Patterns are arrangements of things that repeat in a logical way.

Yes, even babies learn math concepts early on, and it all starts with patterns. This math know-how emerges from your child’s experiences - like clapping along to songs - right alongside other developmental milestones- like being able to clap. Is your young child drawn to music, shapes, and colors? Most are, and it’s their natural inclination toward math.

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