It doesn’t take fancy equipment or a trip out of town to take math and science to the next level with your soon-to-be kindergartner. Here are some suggestions for parents looking for easy ways to expand science and math concepts with their child:
1. Go beyond simply asking your child to identify circles, squares, and triangles. Examine the characteristics or attributes of the shape, such as number of sides, number and types of corners and how shapes are related to each other.
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2. It is important to show children that items can be classified in many different ways and to allow them to find their own ways to link things together. What about organizing a collection they already have? Dolls. Cars. Action figures. Sort the objects by a particular attribute (i.e. color, shape, size, etc). And then do it again with different selection criteria.
3. Acting out stories and drawing pictures can be used to develop early problem solving skills involving numbers and operations. Link number activities to children’s literature and stories. The next time you read a bedtime story, ask your child what problem was trying to be solved in the book and if they would have solved it a different way.
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4. Children are natural scientists and play can provide a venue for observations and investigations. Parents have to let go and allow for free exploration. And, if you don’t have the answer as to why grass is green or the sky is blue, look up the answer together.
Janine Boldrin is a freelance writer who lives in West Point with her husband and children.