Math | Resources | WTTW Kids Learn & Play

Math

There is an increased effort by early childhood educators to boost math instruction and skill building from a child’s earliest years through third grade. Demonstrating proficiency in mathematics has been found to affect a child’s interest and confidence in the subject as they get older, and demonstrations of readiness in math during elementary and middle school are linked to students being more likely to attend and graduate from college.

Classification

One of the ways that children make sense of the world is by finding ways to create order. To help children master the skill of classification, these activities, videos, and books encourage them to match items and move toward more complex activities such as comparing and contrasting multiple attributes of the same set of items through the process of sorting.

All Sorts of Dogs

Help Curious George figure out exactly how many dogs he has brought home from the dog show by using sorting skills to count each dog only once.

Go to activity

Sorting Baskets

Take a tip from The Cat in the Hat and practice sorting objects by color and type.

Go to activity

Related Children's Books

Curious George: The Dog Show by H. A. Rey
Grandma’s Button Box by Linda Williams Aber
Hannah’s Collections by Marthe Jocelyn
Sort It Out! by Barbara Mariconda

Number Sense of Quantity

Perhaps the first building block in acquiring mathematical knowledge is the mastery of a basic number sense of quantity, which is the ability to make a connection between how many or much of something there is to the word assigned to that quantity or amount. These activities, videos, and books are designed to help children practice counting objects in the world around them.

Counting Cards

Instead of just counting on your fingers, jump, clap, and “peep” to show that you know how to count!

Go to activity

Counting Your Chickens

You are a farmer, and you have lost all your chickens! To bring them home and solve your problem, find them all and count them to make sure they all make it back to their chicken coop safely.

Go to activity

Related Children's Books

Stack the Cats by Susie Ghahremani
My Granny Went to Market by Stella Blackstone and Christopher Corr
Let’s Count Goats! by Mem Fox and Jan Thomas
Roar! A Noisy Counting Book by Pamela Duncan Edwards

Number Sense of Math Operations

Children need to first master how to be flexible with numbers before moving forward to more advanced mathematical operations. To prepare children to grasp the concepts of basic math operations, these activities, videos, and books reinforce that addition is as simple as gaining more of something or bringing things together.

Addition Train

All aboard the Addition Train! Help two trains reach their destination by making them the same size using addition.

Go to activity

Related Children's Books

Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Seuss
If You Were a Plus Sign by Trisha Sue Speed Shaskan
Rooster’s Off to See the World by Eric Carle
The Hershey’s Kisses Addition Book by Jerry Pallotta

Shapes

These activities, videos, and books are designed to help children master their foundational understanding of basic shapes. Learning to correctly identify flat shapes such as triangles, squares, etc. is a building block to understanding other mathematical concepts, such as identifying two- and three-dimensional shapes, and comparing and contrasting figures.