The Best Math Games for Your Pre-Schooler
It happened so slowly.
In the fall of 2017, I sent my very first Games for Young Minds newsletter. I had set up a website to act as an archive of my old newsletters, and each week I added a new post.
And the archive got longer, and longer, and longer...
Now I have over 100 games in my archive with no clear way to navigate them! I am thinking about how to fix that, but in the meantime I figured the least I could do is collect some of my favorite games and toys for each grade level.
This week, I'll share some recommendations for pre-schoolers. Each subsequent week, I'll cover the next grade until we hit middle school!
Count Your Chickens
Counting is complicated! It might seem as easy as 1,2,3 to adults, but it's among the most complex concepts that your pre-schooler will master.
That's why I love Count Your Chickens. This game gets kids to count in two different ways - keeping track of spaces along a path, and picking up little chicken tokens along the way. Each turn, your child will count the same sequence in two ways, which helps them make the connection that numbers are describing a quantity. Five spaces and five chickens have something in common: their five-ness
Also, Count your Chickens is cooperative, so you either win together or you lose together. I've found cooperative games to be a wonderful resource for kids who might not love the competitive aspect of most board games
Click here to buy Count Your Chickens on Amazon (affiliate link)
Tiny Polka Dot
If Count Your Chickens helps kids with the counting sequence and one-to-one correspondence, then Tiny Polka Dot can help them develop a robust understanding of how quantities can be represented.
Tiny Polka Dot is essentially a deck of cards that was developed specifically for young children. It comes with beautiful cardstock cards, along with instructions on how to play over a dozen games. I recommend matching games for pre-schoolers, where they try to find cards that both represent the same quantity.
The best part of Tiny Polka Dot is that you'll get a lot of use out of the cards as your kids age. They'll be able to play games involving addition, subtraction, and more complex math as they move through elementary school, all using the same deck of cards.
If you want to see the cards in action, I made a quick video about Tiny Polka Dot that you might want to check out!
Click here to buy Tiny Polka Dot on Amazon (affiliate link)
Attribute Train
Not all games at this age need to focus on counting! In fact, much of early math is about paying attention to shape, pattern, and attribute. I love Attribute Train because you don't need any special tools or materials to play. In fact, you can play with the junk in your kitchen drawer of the toys in your child bedroom!
To play Attribute Train, collect a whole bunch of different objects. Choose an object to be the "locomotive," and then pick a second object that shares an attribute with the locomotive. Maybe they're the same color, or they are both soft, or they are both long. Let's say you make a blue ball the locomotive and a blue action figure as the second train car. Congrats, you've started your train!
Now you need to add a third "train car" that shares and attribute with the action figure. So maybe your child adds a doll, since they are both toys that represent people. Then they need to find a fourth object that shares an attribute with the doll, and on and on.
This game can get as silly and creative as you want! I think kids should be praised for finding particularly interesting or hilarious attributes to use as connectors in their train. And the more your child focuses on attributes, the easier time they'll have with classification, which is a skill they'll develop throughout elementary school.
Pattern Play Blocks
Spatial reasoning is a set of skills that, while not explicitly mathematical, can really help kids develop mental models that assist in mathematical thinking. I appreciate all sorts of math toys, but I especially love those spatially rich toys that are beautiful to explore even when you aren't strictly playing by the rules.
Pattern Play Blocks are just such a toy. The blocks come with a set of chards that show interesting designs for kids to mimic, and your child will have an intellectually simulating experience if they try to replicate the designs.
But the blocks are also just plain fun to play with! I especially love when my kids would try to make a 3-d design by standing some blocks on their ends to create skyscapes and multicolored towers.
Click here to buy Pattern Play Blocks on Amazon (affiliate link)
How Many?
This last recommendation is a book you can play! I love How Many? because it teaches parents how to explore counting with their kids in a much more creative way than usual.
Typically, parents find books that advance from 1 to 10. They count four dogs, then five cats, then six birds. These books are fine, but they don't give kids a chance to decide what they want to count.
How Many? is different. Instead, this book shows an interesting picture with all sorts of objects and a simple prompt: How many do you see?
Your kid will love picking all sorts of different objects to count and different ways to count them! You can even make it a game: say "I see 6, what could I be counting?" Your child will search the page, looking for sixes in all sorts of strange places.
Again, I made a quick video about How Many? that you might want to watch if you would like a tour of the book!