4 early math skills your toddler is ready to learn now

At age 2, math skills like addition and subtraction are still years away. But even now, your toddler is experimenting with early math concepts that lay the foundation for what lies ahead. Here are four fundamental skills that your toddler may be ready—and even excited—to explore ❤️  

1. Using comparison words

Being able to make comparisons, like knowing which of two bowls has more strawberries, is a big breakthrough for your child—it shows that they are starting to understand quantity. Comparison words, like “more/less” and “shorter/taller,” help them understand this abstract concept.

How to practice:

As you and your child play with the Drop and Match Dot Catcher, make two stacks of dots—one shorter (2 dots) and one taller (5 dots). Ask your child to start adding dots to a tower. When they do, label that stack with the correct comparison word: “You’re adding dots to the taller tower.” 

As you help your toddler compare the stacks of dots, try using gestures to show them what you mean. Raise your arms high to signify “taller” and bring them down low to demonstrate “shorter.” Research shows these kinds of gestures can help young children understand comparison words.

2. Learning number words in the correct order

Your child probably hears numbers in everyday conversation, so they pick them up just as they do other common words, like “dog” and “ball.” They may even begin to recite numbers in the correct order. At this stage, your child is likely just memorizing—they don’t fully understand that each word represents a quantity, especially beyond the number three. But this is an exciting first step toward understanding numbers 🙂

How to practice:

Helping your child practice number words may encourage them to link those numbers to their corresponding quantities. Use the buttons from the Mosaic Button Board to show your child how each number word stands for a certain number of buttons. Count, “1, 2, 3…” as they place each button onto the board and encourage your child to repeat after you. Don’t hesitate to count higher than 10, even if you think they aren’t ready yet. Research suggests that introducing large numbers may help your child discover the repeating 0 to 9 pattern and support their counting skills.

3. Identifying shapes

Even if your 2-year-old can’t label their round cracker as a “circle,” they may be able to visually match shapes. For example, if you lay out all the pieces of the <b>Geo Shapes Puzzle</b>, your child may match the triangle pieces together, the square pieces together, and so on. Even beyond geometry, learning to match and identify shapes prepares your child for later math skills. To help get them ready for addition and subtraction, for example, you can put shapes together to make bigger objects (which corresponds to addition) and take shapes apart to make smaller ones (like subtraction). 

How to practice

Reinforce your child’s shape-matching skills with a game of shape stomping. Lay a big piece of drawing paper on the floor. Draw random circles, ovals, rectangles, and squares all over the paper, making each shape big enough for your child’s foot. Fill a bag with puzzle pieces from the Double-Sided Sunny Day Puzzle or the Geo Shapes Puzzle and ask your child to pull a shape out of the bag. Once they’re holding it, encourage them to find the matching shape on the paper and stomp on it with their foot. 

4. Understanding the true meaning of small numbers (up to 3)

Once your child has memorized several number words, they may be ready to connect those numbers to actual quantities. To see if your child has already started to understand this concept, ask them to hand you two blocks from a big pile. If your child hands you two, they probably understand what’s known as the “cardinal meaning” of the number two. At first, they may only be able to do this task with small numbers—if you ask for five blocks, they may get confused. That’s okay; this skill will develop over time.

How to practice:

Use the simple task of picking books at storytime to support your child in understanding the cardinal meaning of numbers. Ask your toddler to choose two books—or any number from one to three. As they choose the books, count them aloud: “One book, two books…” and so on. Encourage your toddler to place each book separately on the floor or a chair, so they can easily see how many there are. 

Learn more about the research

Cartmill, E., Pruden, S. M., Levine, S. C., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Center, S. I. L. (2010). The role of parent gesture in children’s spatial language development. In Proceedings of the 34th annual Boston University conference on language development (pp. 70-77). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Chan, J. Y.-C., Sera, M. D., & Mazzocco, M. M. M. (2022). Relational language influences young children’s number relation skills. Child Development, 93, 956–972. 

Johnson, N. C., Turrou, A. C., McMillan, B. G., Raygoza, M. C., & Franke, M. L. (2019). “Can you help me count these pennies?”: Surfacing preschoolers’ understandings of counting. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 21(4), 237-264.

Sarnecka, B. W., & Lee, M. D. (2009). Levels of number knowledge during early childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 103(3), 325–337. 

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