fun math related activities for interested 3 YO

[mrosehughes]

At DS's parent-teacher conference today, one of his teachers brought up that he seems really interested in math (and puzzles, but we knew about that one), and wondered if we had ideas for things he could do to foster that interest. Of course, aside from counting games, etc, I could think of nothing. The teachers are going to look in the older classrooms for ideas, but I thought I'd ask my wonderful DS resource, too Activity suggestions for both school and home would be great!

More info: DS is nearly 3.5, really into puzzles (does 48+ pieces on his own) and can count pretty high (30+). He's the oldest in his class (youngest will be 3 in June), but there is time during the day that he can play with things the other kids can't do. He can't, however, have anything with small pieces at school (because of state law).

[EmilytheStrange]

we love our abacus around here

most of the things I think about have small pieces, but there's always flashcards with like balls or whatever to count and then add up, etc.

might be able to use some of those velcro food pieces to make math sheets. Like have him reproduce 2 apple slices plus 1 orange slice to equal something.. I dunno.. just thinking out loud here just depends on what they already have in the classroom.

[cmarsh31]

My DS LOVED connect the dots at that age (once he could recognize the numbers 1-30) Loved, loved, loved them. He always enjoyed the hundred board at school too (easy to do at home - felt squares, tiles, whatever, numbered - then put them in order)

[joslin]

At that age ds was loving helping me cook, and I take the approach of working these types of things into regular life, so I introduced fractions and bought him his own kid knives and worked with him to learn half, quarter, etc. Then we extended that to the clock which really helped.aa

Also he got the learning resources cash register from santa which also has number games built in, and then there are always apps on the i-whatever.

[jeebee]

Time telling. What about chess? It's not exactly maths but it is a game of logic. My daughter loves it.

[7mom7]

DS1 LOVES math too. At that age we did a lot of sorting, adding, subtracting with food. It actually worked really well and he thought it was funny. We'd count everything in front of him and either subtract by eating the food or add to the pile and count again. He started grasping multiplication really early by making 2 rows of 6 etc. We'd use anything...chips, grapes, apple slices. We'd practice counting to 100 in the car and reading speed limit signs/road signs. I think all of our math took place while we were eating or driving...lol!

[MamaLump]

Usually not for school, but maybe his teachers could ask a couple questions here and there:

http://bedtimemath.org/

[bobbyjk]

pattern activities, tanagrams, a scale that he can put things on to add/subtract and visually see which is more