When having mathematical conversations at home with your child, the goal should be to remain authentic, personalized to your child's experiences and FUN! The ideas below offer examples of "math at home" conversations!

NUMBER CONCEPTS

• Count everyday objects you have in your home: legos, pennies, forks/spoons, cereal. Listen for the proper counting sequence, and then ask "how many?"
• Locate and identify numbers that your child sees in their life. Examples: numbers on license plates, packages and labels
• Practice counting with your student! Great opportunities for counting happen in the car, waiting in line or out in the community. Children should be able to count starting at 0, or any number within 100!
• Playing cards offer great opportunities to compare numbers and quantities! Use words such as greater than, less than or equal to when comparing!
• Organize items into categories/groups and compare the total amount in each group.
• Dice Games! Roll a dice, count and say the number. What number comes before? What number comes after? The goal of this would be to eventually not have to count the dots on a dice, but to instantly recognize the quantity, or to subitize.

NUMBER OPERATIONS

• Represent the value of each digit in a number using objects. For example, use sticks or beans to represent the tens and ones within a number. 45 = 4 sticks, and 5 beans.
• Use dimes and pennies to represent the value of the digits in a number.
• Use cereal pieces to solve the following problem: Mason has 10 pieces of cereal. He eats 4 pieces. How many pieces are left?
• Counting Opportunities: Count backwards from 100 by 1s and 10s. Skip count to 100 by 10s. Count by 10s starting at 50.
• Use some fruit to solve the following problem: There are 5 oranges and 3 bananas on our kitchen counter. How much fruit is on the counter?
• Ben had 4 chairs at his kitchen table in the morning. After school, there was only 1 chair at the kitchen table. How many chairs are missing?

GEOMETRY

• Go on a shape hunt! Ask your student to name the shapes they see. (Example: doors, windows, bicycle wheels, etc.)
• Name the shapes you see outside on a walk or driving in your car.
• What shapes can you find at the grocery store (2-D and 3-D shapes)?
• Build with blocks. What shapes did you create and/or use to build your structure?
• Find shapes in your world and draw what you see.
• How many triangles can you find in your room? How many circles can you find in our home?
• Using kitchen items such as marshmallows and toothpicks, build 3-D shapes. Discuss the attributes of each shape (example: length and number of sides).

MEASUREMENT AND DATA

• Sort items by color (legos, candy, items found in nature). Count each color. Which color has the most? What color has the least?
• Order items from smallest to tallest. Example: Find 3 sticks, order according to size.

BASIC FACTS

• Use a home math tool (macaroni, beads, buttons) to show each math fact. (Ex. 2 black buttons and 3 yellow buttons make 5 buttons in all; 3 pieces of elbow macaroni and 1 more piece of elbow macaroni make 4 pieces in all).
• Play Memory by using 2 sets of playing cards and putting them face down. Keep the matches you find.
• Play Compare by splitting 1 set of playing cards into two piles. Each player flips a card over, and the player with the greater sum/difference keeps both cards.
• Write a story problem to go with a number equation. Solve your problem. (Example: 3 + 2, "There were 3 brown dogs and 2 white dogs. How many dogs were there?")
• Spread out 1 set of fact cards, face up, on a table. Say a sum/difference and have your child find the fact card that goes with it.
• Think of story problems that you could tell using your child's toys. Example: There are 5 stuffed animals on the floor and 3 in your bed. How many stuffed animals are there?