Before a child begins their formal education, there are things that parents can do to assist in providing the best start to their child’s schooling. Using time wisely such as while driving in the car, at the park, or while your child is taking a bath means you can do things together to develop your child’s numeracy knowledge and skills such as;

• Counting together. Count steps as you go up or down them, count grapes as you eat them, count the forks and knives as you prepare to set the table, count flowers in the garden, count the pairs of shoes at the door, count the library books...

• Count backwards together. Counting backwards is just as important as counting forwards. Each time you count forwards, be conscious of counting backwards as well. Start from a different number each time and count together.

• Read numbers seen in the environment. House numbers, numbers on buses, number plates, phone numbers, on the television remote, or playing hopscotch. Encourage children to trace over the numbers and have a go at writing the numerals by themselves.

• Play board games together. Roll the dice and have your child identify how many dots there are. Can they remember the dot pattern without having to count the individual dots?

• Discuss basic shapes seen in the environment. Around the house, at the shops, at church. Find and identify the basic shapes; circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, and diamond

• Allow your child to help with the cooking.  Encourage them to measure with a cup, weigh food items on a scale, and use words like stir, mix, whisk so they are familiar with this vocabulary.

• Talk about time.  When things will happen, how long activities may take, suggest lunch in 5 minutes or 10 minutes before you turn out the light, so they get an idea of the concept of time.

• Encourage children to investigate patterns. Have them recognise, continue, copy or create their own patterns. Be creative in what you have in the house to use, pegs, bottle tops, utensils, buttons, stamps, as well as body percussion; clapping, tapping, hopping.

For activities to develop literacy skills at home, visit this previous post.

What do you recommend to parents asking about preparing their child for school? Can you add to the list above? We would love it if you joined the conversation and left a comment below,