Kindergarten:
- Count the number of steps it takes to get from your front door to the mailbox (or any two places! your room to the kitchen table). Try to walk the same distance with fewer steps or more steps
- Select things to count (example socks, buttons, crayons, blocks, seeds, legos, cereal, coins). Count objects out loud together. Can have children come up with groupings as they count. Example maybe they will put socks together as a pair and count by 2s.
- Create a number line 0-20 with sidewalk chalk. Call out the number and have your child jump to that number. Then make up directions "Hop back (or forward) two spaces, what number are you on now?" If you don't have chalk you can use paper, crayons, and fingers!
- Select things to count (example socks, buttons, crayons, blocks, seeds, legos, cereal, coins). Count objects out loud together. Can have children come up with groupings as they count. Example maybe they will put socks together as a pair and count by 2s.
- Be a Researcher! Have you child brainstorm a question. You will want to think of something with 3-5 categories. For example keep a tally of the different color cars you see as you walk around outside or look out the window. After you've researched use the data to create your own bar graph. Talk together, what do you notice about the data? This will also work for surveying family members... for example you can ask them do people in your house prefer cheese or pepperoni pizza?
- Search your house for all loose change. Then count up all the money you found!
- Draw a clock on a piece of paper. Tell your to child draw in the hour hand and minute hand to show 8 o'clock. Repeat with other times (11:10, 7:35, 10:55). If you don't want to keep drawing new clocks you can use toothpicks, popsicle sticks, crayons, etc.
- Show a collection of objects (handful of cereal, dried beans, buttons, rocks, etc). Have your child divide into 3 equal groups. Repeat with 4 equal groups, 5 equal groups, etc.
- Give your child a number up to the millions and ask them to round the number to one of the two largest places. Example say round 3,896,324 to nearest million (4,000,000). Round the same number to the nearest hundred thousand (3,900,000)
- Ask your child to name as many factors as they can for a number less than 40 (example 24: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24). They use a calculator to check!
- Give your child a fraction and have them name an equivalent fraction (ex. "1/2" = 2/4, 3/6, 4/8).
- Look up a recipe (online or on the back of a box in your cabinet), ask your child to rewrite the recipe and double each ingredient, then triple, can they 1/2 each ingredient? find 1/3?, etc... see if you can find recipes that call for fractions of certain things, like 1/4 c of water).