Numeracy skill building - support from home

How to build your child's numeracy skills from birth to Grade 2

This page includes tips on how to build your child's skills in maths and numeracy through everyday situations. (Department of Education)

General tips

A child’s first years are a time of rapid learning. Research tells us that babies have an innate capacity to understand numbers. As your child’s first teacher, you play a key role in developing their numeracy skills from an early age.

Developing numeracy skills early gives children an important foundation for their learning and development. It helps prepare them for daily life, including general problem-solving and handling money.Maths includes noticing numbers, shapes, patterns, size, time and measurement. Incorporating maths into everyday experiences is easy and fun. Maths is everywhere – in the playground, at the shops and home.Children need lots of experiences in making, counting, drawing and talking about numbers. This section will help you to build these skills in the children in your care. You may feel the maths your child is doing at their early childhood centre, kindergarten or school is different from how you were taught, but you can still support your child in many ways. Make connections for your child by explaining how numbers and counting are a part of everyday life.

Doing maths together at home

It is important for children to develop specific language skills related to maths. Visits to the playground, or helping at home, provide rich and meaningful contexts to develop these skills. it might take time for your child to use these terms and language effectively, but exposure to this mathematical talk is strong support for future learning.

Talking about maths

Use specific terms when asking for items. For example, ask your child to get the ‘one-litre’ milk bottle from the fridge, or the ‘one-kilo’ bag of flour from the cupboard.
When cooking, talk about different measurements used, such as teaspoons, millilitres, litres, and cups. Discuss ideas about empty and full.
As you walk, talk and play together describe your child’s movements as they climb ‘over’ the fence, slide ‘between’ the poles, and swing ‘under’ the monkey bars. This helps your child understand language related to spatial awareness.
Sorting activities support your child to understand concepts such as ‘same’ and ‘different’. Use recycling as an opportunity to sort items to place in the rubbish. For example, paper, plastic, food waste and general waste.

Counting

Counting is one of the first experiences of maths for young children.

Learning to say numbers often begins with a favourite song or rhyme and the repetition of the number names. Children will often say the numbers before they recognise and identify individual numbers.

Here are some activities and tips to engage your child with counting:

Listen for the counting sequence in these songs and rhymes, which can all be found on youtube.com:
- Five Little Ducks
- Ten in the Bed
- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I Caught a Fish Alive
- Ten Green Bottles
- Five Little Monkeys
- 1, 2, Buckle My Shoe
Children will begin by counting all objects in a group, for example, fingers and toes, the buttons on their clothes, steps to the house, or their toys.
As children move on to counting a set of objects, they begin to link each object with one number. In the beginning, encourage your child to touch each object as they say the matching number.
When beginning to count a group of objects, children may need to arrange the objects in a line to help them count. Later they will be able to start counting from any object without arranging the objects.
Once your child is confident, use different numbers as the starting point for practising counting. For example, start counting from 6 or 10. Ask your child to count forwards and backwards. Ask what number comes before, or what number comes after, a given number.

Counting every day

You can incorporate counting into everyday activities such as:

Cut fruit into six pieces and ask your child to count the pieces.
Count the pieces of toast you cooked for breakfast.
Add the total number of cutlery items at the table.
Count the number of people travelling in the car or on the bus.
Count the number of houses as you walk along the street.
Count how many steps it takes to walk from the kitchen to the bathroom.
Practice counting when grocery shopping with your child (for example, counting the number of apples you put into the bag).
Encourage your child to talk about the number of things in the pictures they draw.

Hunting for numbers

Number hunts are a fun and engaging activity for your child. Ask your child to find numbers around you. Look at and say the numbers on car number plates, signs, calendars, newspapers, shopping catalogues, speed signs, and houses.

Using playing cards

Playing with cards is always a fun activity, particularly on a rainy day or on holidays. You can:

Play matching number games like ‘Snap’ with playing cards.
Order the numbers on the cards from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest.

Playing shop

Playing shop helps ground your child’s maths learning in the real world while also developing their social skills. One way to play shop is to create a mini-shop at home. Here are a few tips and activities:

Collect food and grocery items and label them with prices written on sticky notes, or prices cut out of shopping catalogues.
Talk about how we pay for items using coins, notes and cards.
Make paper money or use play money to buy and sell goods from the mini-shop.
Collect old receipts or price tags and use them in the mini-shop.
Notice the features of different coins, including their shapes and the animals and people shown. Discuss the differences. Create coin rubbings with pencils and paper.
Make a play credit card with a string of numbers on it. Make a paper keypad to press numbers that match those on the card.
Encourage your child to order food items by height (tallest to the shortest) or by cost (least expensive to most expensive).
Introduce kitchen scales to the mini-shop to weigh foods, such as a box of tea bags or a bag of rice, and order items by weight.

Playing games

Making maths fun and interactive by playing games will help engage your child. Here are some ideas:

Play ‘I Spy’ or other games to help your child identify shapes, numbers and patterns.
Board games are a fun way to involve the whole family with maths. Help your child when rolling dice to count, move, and stop after moving the number shown on the dice.
When using dice your child may count all the dots on the die face to determine the total number. Over time they will begin to recognise automatically the value on the die face without counting.
Play number games online with your child. Here is a short list of good websites to help begin your online search for resources:
- FUSE (select Early Childhood or Primary Students tabs)
- Count Us In - ABC Education
- ABC Education
- ictgames

Playing with shapes

Playing with shapes helps develop your child’s awareness of different shapes. It also improves their hand-eye coordination. Here are some tips and activities:

Jigsaw puzzles, tangrams or shape-sorting toys help teach your child problem-solving skills and spatial awareness.
Name and notice the similarities and differences between shapes. For example, shapes with curves, corners or edges.
Help your child draw shapes, cut them out and sort them into groups. Ask your child to explain why they have sorted the shapes this way.
Use cookie cutters to explore different shapes using playdough. Encourage your child to identify shapes in their everyday life, such as a round ball, square window or hexagonal ‘STOP’ sign.
Making paper planes together combines many mathematical concepts, including angles, shapes, halving and symmetry. Once complete, you can compare which plane flew the furthest and have fun measuring too.
Use building blocks to create a tower. Using the same number of blocks, ask your child to build another tower that’s different to the first tower.

Making patterns

Recognising and making patterns are important maths skills for exploring numbers, shapes and symmetry. Activities include:

Identify and explain visual patterns on clothing, wrapping paper, buildings, crockery, cards and furniture. Create a scrapbook to refer back to for ideas during arts and crafts.
Use coloured pegs, blocks, beads or cutlery to begin a pattern for your child to continue. Once confident, ask them to copy or create a pattern of their own.
Try to incorporate some patterns in rhythm. Create a clapping pattern and ask your child to copy and then create their own pattern.
Encourage your child to draw, create and describe their own patterns. Use them for borders on greeting cards.

Moving with maths

These ideas use the movement of the body to experience counting:

Count each toss of the ball as you play a game.
Estimate how many jumps it will take to get to… Then count how many jumps it takes to get to…
Count with your child as you climb steps or walk from the park bench to the slide.
Ask your child to find ways to balance their weight with a friend on the see-saw.
Sing rhymes and songs that involve counting while skipping.

Measuring things

Understanding measurement and scale are crucial to your child’s understanding of maths. Here are some tips and activities:

Use a wall measuring chart to measure the height of people in your family.
Talk to your child about objects around them and help them judge which is bigger or smaller, taller or shorter.
Cut a piece of string for your child – any length will do. Use the string to measure the objects in your house to find out what is longer or shorter than your ‘string measuring tape’. Ask your child to identify anything that is the same length.
Explore other ways of measuring, such as using a cup, jug, teaspoon, icy pole sticks, footprints or hand lengths.
Help your child to build a tower of blocks that is taller than a favourite toy. Ask your child to count the total blocks to measure the height of the tower.
Estimate and measure who can jump the furthest, stand on one foot for a longer period, or how many buttons might fill a jar.
Explore the size of different containers by pouring and filling them. Estimate, then check to see which holds more or less.
Notice changes in the weather and the time of day. Use an old bottle and create a ‘rain gauge’ to measure and monitor how much it rains.

Asking questions to investigate

Ask your child questions like these to encourage them to investigate maths:

What shapes can you see?
How could we measure the...?
How will we find half?
What is the best way to share the...?
How do I get from … to …?
Which is closer: the sandpit or the swing?
How tall can you build a tower before it falls?

Animations to watch together

The Everyday Maths Animations encourage families to explore maths together as they walk, talk and play in everyday situations. The set of three animations support families to bring mathematics and numeracy into conversations in the home, the supermarket and outdoors.

The Mathscots animation series has been developed to support families engage in numeracy and to build home-school connections around mathematics learning. Following the introductory episode, there are 9 stand-alone episodes (each between one and two minutes long). Longer play versions have in-built pauses along with prompts and questions to encourage families to talk about the maths presented. There are also suggested activities that families may like to explore after watching the episodes.

How to build your child's numeracy skills from Grades 3 to 6

This page includes tips on how to build your child's skills in maths and numeracy through everyday situations.

Exploring numeracy with your child

Family participation in learning is one of the most accurate predictors of a child's success in school and beyond.Providing opportunities to discuss and engage in mathematics supports your child’s learning in and out of school. Your child will also begin to connect the importance of maths with their everyday activities, such as navigating public transport, comparing and choosing the best item to buy in stores, setting a budget, and cooking.

Talk positively about maths so your child also values it. If your experiences in maths at school were less than ideal, avoid making comments like 'I was bad at maths at school,' or 'I didn't like maths because it was too hard.' Comments like these can lower your child’s expectations of themselves and can perpetuate myths about people being naturally bad or good at maths.

Conversely, if you did well at maths in school, avoid jumping in with answers or solutions. Encourage your child to talk about how they might work out maths problems. This helps boost their confidence and deepens their understanding.Regardless of your own school experiences in maths, be reassured that maths today is not about learning by rote. Today, the focus is on recognising that there are multiple ways to get an answer, and being able to explain how and why you chose the approach you did.There are many activities you can do at home to help explore maths with your child. When participating in these activities, avoid associating them with speed. Expecting your child to work quickly on maths can cause maths anxiety. Try to focus on the process and not the outcome.

Exploring sports

Sports provide a good opportunity to engage your child in maths, particularly if they are a keen sportsperson. Here are some questions to ask your child when watching or playing their favourite sport:

How does your favourite sport tally the score? What maths is presented on the tally?
How do other sports tally the score – for example, tennis, golf, cricket, netball, football?
What maths do you use to find the total of the scores?
Who is at the top of the ladder? How is this determined?
Are there other ways to record the score?
How long do your favourite sport games go for in minutes and seconds? How is the time in the game divided? Into halves, quarters or something else?
What are the shapes of different playing fields and courts? Talk about edges and angles.
How can you estimate the perimeter and area of a playing field?
How many cars could be parked on the MCG field or at your local sports ground? How could we work this out?

Watching the weather

Because it changes daily, the weather can be a great topic to discuss maths with your child. Try these activities:

Visit the Bureau of Meteorology website
Use a thermometer and/or rain gauge to keep graphed records of your local weather conditions.
Ask your child the difference between each day’s minimum and maximum temperatures. Do they notice a pattern or trend in the weather changes?
Find a seven-day forecast, then record the actual temperature for each day and compare. Ask your child if the forecast was accurate. Ask them what similarities and differences they notice.
Use the information on the weather website to explore differences in weather between your area and other areas. Ask your child how much rain you get compared to other areas. Ask your child to identify differences in temperature between your area and other areas. Who might be affected by an increase or decrease in rainfall?

Sharing recipes

Discussing maths when cooking can provide a daily maths lesson involving measurement, time, and cost. Here are some activities you could try at home:

Collect and read recipes and discuss the use of fractions, millilitres and grams. Encourage your child to make accurate measurements using measuring cups and spoons.
Discuss how you would double or halve a recipe. Encourage your child to record new measurements for the recipe. Discuss why and when you might need to do this.
Identify the temperature and cooking time on the recipe. Discuss why different recipes have different temperatures and cooking times.
Estimate the cost to buy all the ingredients to make the recipe. Compare this with the actual cost of items. Ask your child if they think it was better to buy the ingredients and make dinner or get takeaway.
Make a list of the abbreviations used in the recipe and then write them in full – for example, l for litre, ml for millilitre, tsp. for teaspoon, tbsp. for tablespoon.
Investigate the prices of fresh fruit and vegetables available in the supermarkets compared with market vendors.

Browsing catalogues

Discussing catalogues can be a great way to improve your child’s maths knowledge of money and percentages. Here are some questions you could ask:

How would you spend $40 from a catalogue? How many products can you buy for $40?
Select five products from the catalogue, then calculate what the cost would be if there was a 50% sale. Does it make a difference if you add up the items, and then deduct 50%, or if each item is reduced by 50% then totalled?
What is the best value sale item in the catalogue? Can you explain your reasoning?
Compare the cost of a product across different stores using different catalogues. What did you find?
Find an example where there is a discounted cost for multiple items. Calculate how much this will really save.
‘Consider how to find 10% of an item and then 20%. Is there a pattern that would make calculations in multiples of 10% easy?’

Travel timetables

Here are some questions to ask your child that improve their knowledge of time and their problem-solving skills:

Can you identify your starting point on the timetable?
What is the earliest and latest time to travel on this route?
How long does it take to travel the entire route?
How many stops are there on this route?
What is the difference in the time travelled when not making all the stops?
What is the cost? Is it good value compared to other travel options?
Which is the best route to travel? Why do you think this?
To get to training on time, when will you need to leave?

Handling money

Encouraging your child to think about money, saving money, and considering how they spend money is very important. Here are some tips and activities:

Encourage your child to work out how much change you will get after buying something.
Investigate costs for family trips together. For example, a visit to a theme park may include the cost of transport, entry tickets, food and transport.
Discuss saving money for presents or something your child may want to buy. Work out how long it will take to save this much if they get a small amount of money each week.
Negotiate increases in pocket money as percentages. For example, a 5% increase would be how much money per week? Is this better than a monthly increase?
Encourage your child to save a percentage of their pocket money or birthday money and work out how much this would be. For example, how much money would you have if you saved 40% each week?
Read the newspaper or watch the news. Discuss what is happening with the stock market and why these changes may occur.

Understanding fractions

Fractions is a maths topic that is very relevant to everyday life. We use our knowledge of fractions to solve problems and make decisions all the time.

Support your child by using mathematical language to talk about fractions. Here are some maths language terms your child uses at school:

Fraction – any part of a whole, a group or a number (for example, )
Numerator – showing the number of parts of the whole (for example, in the fraction , the numerator is 4)
Denominator – shows how many equal parts the whole is divided into (for example, in the fraction , the denominator is 5)
Proper fraction – when the value of the numerator is less than the denominator (for example, )
Improper fraction – when the numerator is greater than or equal to the denominator (for example, )
Equivalent fraction – fractions that have the same value or amount (for example, = )
Mixed numbers – a whole number and a fraction (for example, 1)
Children begin by learning that there are many numbers between whole numbers. A number line is an effective model to help your child understand this:
0____________¾____1________________2
Your child also begins to develop an understanding of the relationship between fractions, decimals, ratios and percentage.
Decimals – a fraction that is made by dividing a whole into ten equal parts (tenths) or one hundred equal parts (hundredths). For example, 75 red pens of 100 total pens can be rewritten as 0.75 or .75
Ratio – a comparison of two or more amounts. For example, in a fruit bowl there are 3 apples and 4 pears. This ratio of apples to pears is represented as 3:4.
Percentage – is the number of parts out of 100. For example, in a collection of 100 buttons, 75 are red. This can be represented as 75 per cent or 75%.

Talk positively about how you use fractions in everyday life. Making models of fractions for your child will support their understanding of fractions. Try some of these ideas by making use of everyday objects:

Can you show me halves and quarters as you cut the orange?
Can you cut up the apple to make six equal pieces? What fraction of the whole apple is one piece? Four pieces? How else could you say that?
What percentage of the glass is filled with water? What is the ratio of water to air in the glass?
How do the hands on the clock face show the time quarter past? Why do we use the word ‘quarter’ when telling the time?
If you fold a towel three times equally, what fraction does it show?

Connecting online

Here are some other useful websites you can access from home or the local library. Some are also available to download as apps on various devices:

FUSE (select Early Childhood or Primary Students tabs)
ABC Education
Wolfram|Alpha Examples: Elementary Math (start with the Elementary Maths link)
ictgames
ScratchJr
Kodable