There are many ways to make mathematics come alive for your preschooler without ever having to think about flash cards, worksheets, and memorizing math facts. • For starters, have your child help you the next time you're doing the laundry. Ask her to sort the clothes using some kind of system of her own choosing. How does she sort them? By size? By color? By use? This will require her to develop the ability to classify and categorize, both important prerequisites to later mathematical understanding. • Play simple board games with your child, like Chutes and Ladders. Adding together dice amounts and making moves requires simple counting skill your child may need help with, but can eventually master on her own. • Show your child the importance of numbers in measurement by weighing her, measuring her height, and then measuring other family members and placing all the figures on a bar graph.In these and other ways, you can help convey the message to your child that math is an important part of every day life.

Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. is an award-winning author and speaker with twenty-eight years of teaching experience from the primary through the doctoral level, and over one million copies of his books in print on issues related to learning and human development. He is the author of nine books including Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, In Their Own Way, Awakening Your Child’s Natural Genius, 7 Kinds of Smart, The Myth of the A.D.D. Child, ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the Classroom, and Awakening Genius in the Classroom. His books have been translated into sixteen languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Hebrew, Danish, and Russian.