How To Teach Number Sense To Kids Of 4 Years

 

How Children Learn Mathematics?

Is important to know that children create or recreate mathematical relationships in their own minds and interpret it in relation to what is already know or believed. That’s why children MUST be active in the learning experience to fully understood the experience. Teachers and mothers who use the constructivist method of teaching encourage discovery learning and active experimentation.

How can you do it? By letting the child have more active experiences and not just writing on paper inorder to learn. It’s easier for them to learn the concepts when they are more tangible.

What’s number sense?

Number sense is the ability to understand relationships between single items and groups of items. It lets us to know that seven means one group of seven items.

Also lets us to understand symbols that represent quantities. For instance, 7 means the same thing as seven. As our number sense develops, we’re able to make number comparisons. For example, 12 is greater than 10, and 4 is half of 8.

Kids need number sense to do math operations. They have to be able to manipulate quantities when they add, subtract, multiply and divide.

Activities for 4-year-old kids

1. Playdough Bubble Gum

Materials:

• Playdough Mats
• Playdough

How to play:

If you want to do this easy activity at home you can either draw it or download the printable and print it. Teach your children how to make “snakes” with their playdough. They can form the numbers and make sets with balls of playdough to match.

2. Worm Handprint Art

Materials:

• Worm Printable
• Paint

How to play:

The children will be working on worm printable. Each worm has a number at the beginning so, they will have to use paint create the rest of the body according to that number.

3. Squishy Mats

Materials:

• Ziploc Bag
• Hair gel
• Food Coloring

How to play:

In a Ziploc bag squeeze in some hair gel. Add a few drops of food coloring, and seal the bag at the top with tape. Let the children practice forming the numbers using their fingers or a cotton swab.  They can practice formation without worrying on mistakes the way they do while practicing on paper.

4. Table Games for Math

Materials:

• Uno Cards
• Domino Pieces

How to play:

It’s really simple, take an Uno Card read it and then look for that number in the domino pieces. You can either use just one piece or more pieces to get the same result. Ex: 8 (It can be one piece that has 8 dots or two pieces with 4 dots each)

Feed the Animals (by me)

Materials:

• Bingo Animal Cards
• Numbers Flashcards
• Pasta shells

How to play:

Give your child the bingo animal cards and ask him to feed the numbers of animals according to the flash card, so they match the number with the quantity.

Bibliography

http://kteachertiff.com/2017/04/10-ways-teach-children-numbers.html