Maths using household objects
Simple Maths ideas using every day things
Circles and Cans: Supports learning about geometry and matching similar shapes.
Materials: Paper & markers, food cans of different sizes
Instructions: Take out a few cans of food of different sizes from the cupboard. Talk about the shape of the whole can (they are cylinders) and the shape of the top and bottom of the cans (circles). Together with your child, trace each can on a piece of paper. Shuffle the papers and help your child match the cans to the traced circles.
Snowball Hunt: Supports counting
Materials: 12 cotton balls, 1 egg carton
Instructions: Number the cups of the egg carton from 1 to 12. Hide cotton ball “snowballs” around the room. Give your child the empty numbered egg carton. Ask your child to looks for the hidden “snowballs” and fill the egg carton cups in order from 1 to 12. Then let your child hide the snowballs for you to find.
Muffin Tin Counting: Supports learning to count, make sets, and use one-to-one correspondence. To find the total number of items in a set, your child must recognise that the last number in the counting sequence tells “how many.” This is called cardinality.
Materials: Muffin pan, paper liners, and some small objects like buttons, pebbles, or acorns
Instructions: With your child, number the paper liners from 1 to 12. Place each liner in a muffin cup while counting out loud, “1, 2, 3 . . . 12”). Ask your child to place in the cup as many buttons as needed to match the number of the cup.
Nesting Instinct: Supports learning about measurement and putting items in order by size. When children order objects by size, they build their comparison skills and use mathematical words such as wide, narrow, tall, short, long.
Materials: Empty food and cosmetic boxes such as cereal, toothpaste, biscuits etc
Instructions: Have your child experiment to find out which boxes fit inside one another. Model and encourage the use of correct measurement vocabulary such as longer, shorter, wide, narrow, taller, and smaller. Ask questions like: Can that one (pointing to the smaller one) fit inside that one (pointing to the bigger one)? How do you know?
Shoe Comparisons: Supports learning about measurement and comparing the lengths of items. Comparing how long things are helps prepare children to understand why we use standard units of measurement.
Materials: Child’s shoe
Instructions: Have your child use the shoe as a measurement tool. Say, “Can you find four things in the room that are shorter than your shoe?” Use mathematical vocabulary such as measure, compare, length, shorter, and longer to discuss the objects your child finds. Next, ask your child to find four objects that are longer than the shoe.
With a little creativity, simple household items can become powerful tools for learning maths. Open your kitchen cupboards and open your child’s mind to thinking and learning about maths!
