![]() ![]() I use lots of timed challenges with young children. This can also be an excellent introduction to symmetry, as children will often build using the same resources one side of their model as on the other ( check out the ultimate hands-on symmetry activities here). This is a great activity to include counting with creation, stimulated by lots of questions about quantity, and one more and less. They need numerous eyes, arms, tentacles etc. ![]() Get the children to make the alien body out of dough first, and then simply start adding quantities of body parts. Their ludicrous bodies can have ten eyes and fifteen legs and all that kind of thing! It is a true counting goldmine! You can create shapes that you will find impossible to name.Īliens in general are great for mathematics. All the time you can ask questions like how many corners do you have? You can create 3D shapes, like a cube or a pyramid. I tried this activity with my daughter and she made a chest of drawers! For a square simply get four little balls of playdough and use them to connect four cocktail sticks.įrom there you can explore further possibilities. Start with simple 2D shapes, like a triangle or a square. These act as the shape corners or vertices. Give the children some cocktail sticks, and then get them to roll little balls of playdough. It also works well with plasticine, which is harder and so keeps the sticks more firmly in place. This is probably a more well-known strategy, but a truly excellent one. The best math activities in the early years I think are both visual and have room in them for conversations, and this activity is certainly that. Children traditionally find this a hard concept to get a grasp of. You can demonstrate how to measure by holding the ends of objects level with each other. How many would you have if you made one more? What if you sold one? You can simply count the wands, and this activity is fantastic for one to one correspondence. When you’ve made the wands, there are all sorts of maths conversations that can be had. As you make them you can ask things like ‘Which is longest/shortest? How do you know?’ Get them to make lots of wands each, but no two wands can be the same. ![]() They are going to make a shop for magic wands.Īll the best wand shops need one thing – variety! The children are apprentice wizards or witches. However, I do think some adult direction is important in scaffolding and demonstrating mathematical thinking, and the more children are shown the more likely they are to transfer math skills into their play. Once modelled and understood, they could later become child-led or child-initiated in some way. I would introduce these activities in an adult-led or adult directed context. The experiences are all suited to children aged between 3-6, with some challenging the more able learners, and some being more accessible to all. ![]() The activities below are among my favourite uses of playdough to develop a wide range of early maths skills. It stimulates talk, develops imagination, can be used in small world play, role-play, construction and of course, for the benefit of this blog, math! The benefits of using playdough in young children can be seen across the whole curriculum. It is just more usable than most of its competitors in a wider spectrum of situations. Playdough gives huge scope for using a wider range of tools on it than other substances like putty or Plasticine. Very few other materials have the same level of excitement and versatility attributed to them by children. One of the kings of all fine motor resources, of course, is playdough. Both require the same sort of concentration to detail, careful manipulation of physical objects, and just a similar kind of focus on fiddling with things! Developing fine motor control in positive ways has numerous proven benefits for young children. I think there is a great link between fine motor development and maths development. Playdough maths is one of the most enjoyable ways to teach simple skills to young children. ![]()
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