The math activity you didn’t know you have in your house

Reading and language can often feel easier than math to incorporate into your baby’s routine. The good news is, you can actually combine reading time with math learning, and you don’t need a special math book to do it 😉

Any book with illustrations or photos can become a prompt for introducing important math lessons. Comparisons—longer, shorter, less, more—and concepts like one-to-one correspondence (the idea that a collection of objects corresponds to a specific quantity), and cardinality (the last number you count is the total) can be often be taught through these images.  

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Count just about anything in a book, pointing as you go. For example, you can count the fingers on the cover of ‘Parts of Me,’ or open the book and count the eyes you see. In ‘Animals I See,’ you could count the number of ants or the number of ears or legs. 
2. Once you’ve finished counting and pointing in the book, hold up your hand and count the same number on your own fingers. This is recommended by early childhood math experts.
3. Next, to incorporate the concept of cardinality, use your finger to circle the items you were just counting to reinforce the quantity as part of a whole set. Then say the number again: ‘1, 2, 3, 4. [circle the set]. Four eyes.’
4. Ask a question before you start. How many balloons do you see on this page? Then answer the question while counting, ‘1, 2, 3. Three balloons—I see 3 balloons.’
5. You can count the number of pages as you work together to turn them. Older babies love to practice manipulating the pages in a board book.
6. You don’t need to read a book from front to back, especially when you are working on math concepts. Reading with babies often lasts only a couple of minutes. 

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