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Get Your Child Started With Math: Teaching Measurement


Do you have some paper clips? Toy trucks? Blocks? Shoes? Crayons? Juice boxes? Soup spoons? Then you have the perfect tools for measurement! How many crayons do you think it will take to get from the end of the bed to the bureau? How many paper plates? If you have a number of things all the same size, you can measure distances – the fun way.

Think about some of the things we need to know in order to measure objects and distances. We know that the tools of measurement must all be the same length, they must touch each other end to end, and there must be a beginning point and

candy hearts

an end point of what is being measured. So how can you get your preschooler interested in learning this? Think really hard (use that exaggerated thinking expression – squinting eyes, thumb and forefinger on chin) and say, “Hmmm. I wonder how many crayons it would take to get from the bed to the closet. Wanna find out?”