Early Math FUN! - Homeschooling Preschool/K Math - Making a Manipulatives Kit and More

Summary:  How to make a frugal math manipulatives kit and teach your kids early math concepts. #homeschoolpreschool #homeschoolkindergarten #early math


When you little, everything is math!  

Toys can be counted, towels sorted and put into sets.  Cookie making became a lesson in adding and subtracting, and beads got sorted into patterns as well, as making necklaces.... 

Also, buttons, shells, rocks, sorted by shape, color, size, what have you.  Even laundry could be sorted into sets.  All of this is good early math learning!

Our little ones learn best through play.  Basic math concepts, such as counting, sorting, bigger/smaller, same/different, adding, subtracting, etc can all be learned through play with manipulatives. 

  Making a Manipulatives Kit

Making a kit can be frugal and simple.  We just collected small items from around the house, or from our beach collections of rocks, etc. 

Manipulatives can really be any small object that you have around your house.  

Buttons, shells, rocks, etc, can be sorted by shape, color, or size, and grouped into sets. This teaches early math concepts, as they are play!  

Even laundry could be sorted into sets, or by size, small, medium and large, such as with towels. 

We put our collected manipulatives into a shoe box, decorated it for fun, and got it out only for math play time. 

That made these little toys and objects special to her.

Some of the things that we included were:

1.  Rocks collected from the beach

2. Legos, or other small toys, to sort into sets, by color, size, or shape.

3.  Our collection of old buttons

4.  Pine cones

Stir the Wonder has a great post on Free and Affordable Math Manipulatives, full of more ideas for your kit.

Early Math Concepts

Get out your small toys and manipulatives and let your child explore with them.  While they are playing they can learn these math concepts:

1. Number Concepts: 

Using small objects. Ask your child: How many is four? How many is six? 

What if you take one away? Add two? 

Ask lots of questions for number concepts to develop. Later, your child can practice this in Numbers and Patterns-K.

2. Sets:

Math is all about sets. Children making their own sets will provide true learning! They can enjoy sorting their toys into sets. 

Sorting buttons by shape, then by size, etc. There are sorting activities everywhere! 

My daughter enjoyed sorting laundry into sets by grouping the like sized towels/washcloths, etc. 

Buttons can be sorted by size, color, or shape into sets, etc.

3. Addition and Subtraction: 

Cookies are the best for this! Or give your child a cookie sheet to work on with a limited number of toys. Ask your child to add the trucks to the cars or other simple problems.

4. Mathematical Patterns: 

As you know, math is made up of patterns. Crayons can be used to sort into patterns, such a finding all the orange and blue crayons and lining them up for a two part pattern (e.g., orange/blue, orange/blue,etc.) Making a bead necklace is fun too. Use a two part pattern, or a three part pattern.

As your young child gets better, add in a fourth part (e.g., one more color, blue/red/yellow/purple, repeat, etc.) Coloring patterns can be fun too. There are some patterns to color in Numbers and Patterns –K.

5. Equivalents: 

Making equivalents is fun! 

Rods can be used for this but you can make your own out of construction paper. 

First, cut out a strip of paper that is 10 inches long, say in blue. 

Then cut out cubes that are 1 inch in size, in yellow. 

Ask your child how many yellows equals a blue? He/she will find that 10 yellow cubes equals one blue (10 inch strip). 

And they will be doing equivalents!!

Your child can discover these herself! Everything that your child discovers for herself will stick and prepare her for more advanced math later!

I have more about manipulatives kits here.  You can teach all of the early math concepts through manipulative play!  Here's more on that..

Early Math Resources

When we needed more ideas for our math play, we turned to some workbooks by Evan-Moor or Teacher Created Materials. 

Both are frugal and done by well respected publishers.  Here are some of our favorites:

Numbers and Patterns - Kindergarten 

Lots of great ideas for math play here.  Click the title to read my review of this resource.

Shapes and Beginning Fractions 

This little resource gave us more ideas for our math play.  We usually used our manipulatives along with the book, so that my daughter could do the early math problems hands-on. 

We would take one page at a time, encouraging my daughter to solve the problems by using her manipulatives.  

Handling the manipulatives and working out the early math problems in the book, really makes early math come alive!  One evening we even made pizza night into a lesson on fractions.

Who gets to eat the last piece, 1/4th?

Evan-Moor Educational Publishers has lots more preschool, kindergarten  and early elementary workbooks here. 

Has your little one begun to explore early math yet? 

Whatever way that you decide to introduce math to your little ones, enjoy it.  I sure did.  

For more encouragement for homeschooling your young ones, click here - 6 Tips to Homeschool your Preschool or Kindergarten Child] from my friend, Terrie.

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is a former O.T, preschool teacher, homeschooling mom and published author of children's stories.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool about the early years, high school, college, and is the author of "Homeschooling High School with College in Mind".  She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting.

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Homeschool Preschool and Kindergarten - Early Language Arts - Hands-on!

Summary: Sharing frugal preschool and kindergarten resources for introducing the A,B,C's, early phonics and reading and beginning handwriting activities.  Hands-on playful learning during the early years is so beneficial for our little ones. Note - This post may included affiliate links to products that we love and have used or would use in our  own homeschool. Please see my disclosure policy.



Today, I'd like to share how we homeschooled those precious early years...in the A,B,C's, early phonics and handwriting, ie, Language Arts or some call it early English.  

For us, everything was hands on and all about exploring and learning together.  And with my active, curious 2e daughter, there was always laughter.

We focused on phonics, early reading, and handwriting during the early years.  And I found a great help for phonics, in Explode the Code. 

PHONICS

Not every homeschooler does phonics, but we did, and I found it helpful for teaching reading.  So for early Phonics, we used Explode the Code Primers.  This is a very well researched program, and is kid friendly as well!  

 It covers all the basic phonics, and goes from preschool, all the way to 5th grade, if you like, and does it in a fun way. It also includes learning to write the abc's, early reading skills, and word families. 

I can still picture my daughter working in her Primer so proudly by herself, after she had mastered the routine.  Of course, we talked about it afterwards, and reviewed all the sounds of the day.

Explode the Code continues through grade 6, so for kindergarten, I recommend progressing to the next Explode the Code workbook.  It is a great way to not only teach phonics, but also spelling and reading.

READING
 

We introduced the letters of the alphabet with Alpha Tales.  This book has a humorous story for each letter of the alphabet.  There are ABC mini-book to make as well, which was a favorite activity in our house!   

We went to the library every week, and found so much there.  I just let our daughter pick out books that she liked.

When my little one was ready, we used the Bob Books series from there, as our first readers, which introduced one vowel at a time. We also liked the series at I Can Read  

My daughter also loved to work in Sequencing Simple Stories  by Evan-Moor. 

  

HANDWRITING              

To help with writing, we first did lots of fun small muscle activities,  playing with molding clay, painting, drawing, cutting, etc.  Arts and Crafts were popular in our house, as well as some easy knitting and sewing, not that those are necessary.

We played with playdough, did lots of drawings, cut with sissors, fingerpainted, and often did gluing projects. Sometimes we tore paper into small pieces to make a design with glue, which helped to strengthen the finger muscles.   

Here's a few more ideas for small muscle games.  Do what your child enjoys...if they don't like crafts, playing with legos, small blocks, etc, works, too.  

Learning Letter Shapes  

photo credit Oak Meadow

We wrote letters in pudding, in the air, on the sidewalk, in the sand, and on large newsprint paper....the bigger the better.  This gave my daughter the feel each letter. 

We also used some of the activities in  Small Muscle Games.  They helped to strengthen the finger muscles and develop coordination for grasp. 

 Small Muscle Games

Once she could write the letters of the alphabet, she was ready to put her words into action.  More fun, easy to do, early writing activities are in Teach Your Kids to Write.  

Develop Hand Strength with Homeschool Clay Activities  has lots of ideas for strengthening the hand with clay, including making clay animals, with some activities that could work for older handwriters, too. 

Does your child have trouble holding his/her pencil comfortably? It is a developmental thing, and it normally takes a lot of time!  For a fun way to learn grasp, check out this article below:

 9 Ways to a Mature Grasp - Games and Fun!

I hope these resources give you inspiration in finding what works for your dear child.  What do you like to do for early reading and writing?  I enjoy reading your comments.

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, highschool, 
college, gifted/2e and wrote -Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd Edition,   She offers homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting,  and has had some of her articles picked up by the Huffington Post.

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Where our Homeschooling Happens

Our homeschool space, through the years, has been ever-changing and evolving...

I remember starting out with my 4 year old, when we just used a wooden table that we set it by the window, for my daughter to practice her letters and such....

..She could watch for birds at the same time....

Science happened wherever we were, as long as we had a pail for collecting her important specimens....

Then, in the kitchen, we encouraged our young artist with pudding fingerpainting, drawing, gluing, cutting, and even painting with apples.  I just had to remember to cover the table with a plastic tablecloth, first, lol!

For a reading nook, I used a bookcase from the thrift store, and filled it with books, changing them out as she developed her reading skills.  Most of the books were either presents from family or found at one of our local children's consignment stores.

Here is how our Book Nook looked, in the early years...

We found the whale at a local garage sale.  It was great for my little one, to snuggle up with, and even read to!

My daughter continued to fill this bookcase with her favorites through the years, including books that she saved from her Oak Meadow literature courses and other books special to her. 

Here's how our updated book nook looks today...

These days, my teen prefers to study here.....

....in her own room, with the desk that she set up herself, decorated with her favorite things.  She used the same wooden table you saw from her earlier years, and just added the top piece from a desk set that she found at Goodwill.

The fish rug in the picture, above, was made from a puzzle years ago, that we put together with a layer of plastic wrap.  And she added a penguin stuffed animal, as well, one of her cherished things.  By the way, our kitten ran in while I was taking this picture, so he was a surprise addition to it...

That's all about our homeschooling space, at home.  But lots of our homeschooling took place outside of it......starting with preschool ballet and ending with some high school activities, such as Youth and Government.  Here's a picture from that....when they were goofing off.

My teen earned an English credit in speech and debate, through this fun teen activity.

And, our nature studies, of course, took us outside.  First, to explore our backyard, then later to explore the pacific northwest through mini road trips.  Sometimes my teen "took me", as she was practicing her driving skills....

And now, my previously very neat and tidy little one, will finally let herself get muddy....yes!

Thanks for stopping by, to see where our homeschooling happened...and, as you know, homeschooling happens everywhere!

This post is linked to the Not Back to School Blog Hop - School Room Week.

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college senior, whom she homeschooled from preK through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote - Homeschooling High School with College in Mind.   She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting. 

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Copyright, 2017, All Rights Reserved

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Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college junior, whom she homeschooled from day one.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote the book - Homeschooling High School with College in Mind.   She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting. 

Want to stay in touch?  

Subscribe, Pinterest, G+, Twitter, Facebook 

This post was shared on my favorite linkups here.

Copyright @ BJ's Homeschool 2017 

All Rights Reserved