Need Ideas for Fun Preschool Math and Reading Games.

Preschoolers learn best from play and interaction with the world. If you and he count everything when you go to the supermarket, go outside, put his toys away, etc. then he will learn. If he learns that math is part of the physical world, he will understand it better and enjoy it. Hand him five blocks. Ask him to give you one back, now ask him how many he has left. Name the shapes of things you see. Count their sides. Let him build. That sort of thing.

He will learn language because you read to him and talk to him. He really does NOT need flash cards, teaching' games and definitely not computer games.

I always try to build the things I plan around a book.

For instance, for math I would use the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

The caterpillar goes through all kinds of fruits and veggies. He eats through one apple, two pears, 3 plums, 4 strawberries, 5 oranges, and a bunch of other stuff.

I would use the book to have my kids help me make a recipe for fruit salad that would have corresponding one piece of apple, two of pears, 3 of plums, 4 of strawberries, 5 of oranges. I would let them cut the fruit, count it out and mix it together and that could be snack for the day.

Another is The Very Grouchy Ladybug also by Eric Carl. I would cut out the pieces to make a lady bug. An oval for the body, a small circle for the head in black. A large circle to cut in half for the wings in red. And then smalIer red cirlces for the spots on the wings. would let them make several and glue stick them together. Then have them count out the number of black dots you say and glue them to the wings. If you said 4 then they would count out 4 dots and glue them to their bug.

Alphabet bingo. Make bingo cards with letters instead of numbers and let them have little chips, or fruit loops, anything that can be a marker. Put the alphabet on small pieces of paper in a bag or bowl. As you call out the letter, if they have it on their card, the have to mark it. The first person to get bingo wins.

I have more. If you want them just PM me and I will send them your way.

Check out http://letterlearning.blogspot.com Fun, easy (and cheap) ideas to keep preschoolers having fun while they learn! :)

Discovery Toys makes great games to help build the early math and reading skills that kids need to build their foundation of learning. Even things like building with blocks can help - work on making patterns within the structures or copying a castle/building from a picture.

Some great Discovery Toys that can help you with these skills:
Measure Up Cups: the cups are numbered 1-12 and are volumetrically correct (fill up cups 1 & 2 and pour into cup 3 - they will fill it up exactly) They can be used with sand, water, etc and can also be used with playdoh, cookie cutters and more

Giant Pegboard - work on patterns, buidling, shapes, colors, graphing, create letters, and much more. 24 Activity Cards included to help start you on your journey of learning

Playful Patterns - often called "preschool in a box," this game uses foam shapes to make fun geometric patterns that get progressively harder as you move along

Tub Stick Ups Letter Catch - a fishing game for the bathtub or water table. Contains 96 letters so you can start spelling out simple words, practicing letter sounds and more

Geomino - match geometric shapes to photos of familiar objects

There are others that are also great. Please check them all out on my website at http://www.discoverytoyslink.com/karenchao It's a really great way for your kids to learn without making it feel like work.

If you want info on how to get some toys for free, send me a private message. Otherwise, you can just go to my website and place an order anytime!

We use abcmouse.com and love it!

www.printactivities.com

I don't know if you are interested in computer games, but my 4 year old son has learned SO much from a website called coolmath4kids.com. It has wonderful logic and puzzle games that are specifically geared for 3-5 year olds.

K

at this age your not looking for math so much as concepts and names for math stuff. we did a lot of math stuff by graphing / sorting / compiling things at that age. and you can work in colors and numbers and words all into it. are you doing it with just your child or a group?

each day do something with the graph (at that age make a big graph on a pc of poster board) find out how many kids have on red shirts , blue shirts, green etc add them up

sort things into piles. I saved all the milk jug lids thru the winter (different colors) and sorted them into a tupperware veggie and dip tray. kids can sort them by size, color, weight

get a scale and let him / her weigh things rocks, bottle caps, feathers , pencils etc...