1. Children learn through their play.
Don’t underestimate the value of play. Children learn and develop:
cognitive skills – like math and problem solving in a pretend grocery store
physical abilities – like balancing blocks and running on the playground
new vocabulary – like the words they need to play with toy dinosaurs
social skills – like playing together in a pretend car wash
literacy skills – like creating a menu for a pretend restaurant
2. Play is healthy.
Play helps children grow strong and healthy. It also counteracts obesity issues facing many children today.
3. Play reduces stress.
Play helps your children grow emotionally. It is joyful and provides an outlet for anxiety and stress.
4. Play is more than meets the eye.
Play is simple and complex. There are many types of play: symbolic, sociodramatic, functional, and games with rules-–to name just a few. Researchers study play’s many aspects: how children learn through play, how outdoor play impacts children’s health, the effects of screen time on play, to the need for recess in the school day.
5. Make time for play.
As parents, you are the biggest supporters of your children’s learning. You can make sure they have as much time to play as possible during the day to promote cognitive, language, physical, social, and emotional development.
6. Play and learning go hand-in-hand.
They are not separate activities. They are intertwined. Think about them as a science lecture with a lab. Play is the child’s lab.
7. Play outside.
Remember your own outdoor experiences of building forts, playing on the beach, sledding in the winter, or playing with other children in the neighborhood. Make sure your children create outdoor memories too.
8. There’s a lot to learn about play.
There’s a lot written on children and play. Here are some NAEYC articles and books about play. David Elkind’s The Power of Play (Da Capo, 2007 reprint) is also a great resource.
9. Trust your own playful instincts.
Remember as a child how play just came naturally? Give your children time for play and see all that they are capable of when given the opportunity.
10. Play is a child’s context for learning.
Children practice and reinforce their learning in multiple areas during play. It gives them a place and a time for learning that cannot be achieved through completing a worksheet. For example, in playing restaurant, children write and draw menus, set prices, take orders, and make out checks. Play provides rich learning opportunities and leads to children’s success and self-esteem.
Laurel Bongiorno, PhD, is the director of Champlain College’s graduate program in early childhood education, with specializations in teaching and administration, in Burlington, Vermont. She has taught preschool, directed early childhood programs, and studied parents’ perceptions of preschoolers’ learning through play.
Audience: Family
Playing math games with children can be a fun, developmentally appropriate way to spark understanding of big mathematical ideas. Math games also support children’s mathematical habits of mind—and key school readiness skills, such as problem solving, puzzling, and perseverance. When we watch and listen to how children play math games, we learn a lot about the mathematics they already know and what they’re ready to learn.
This is the first article in a series about math games and how they support preschooler math readiness.
What are dot card and finger games?
Dot card games are simple and can be played again and again. They use cards that have one to 10 black dots arranged in different configurations—linear (straight line), rectangular, dice pattern, circular, and scattered configurations.
A variety of dot arrangements help children develop different mental images of quantities.
We often ask children to count a line of objects, but circular and scattered arrangements are harder to count one by one! These games support children’s ability to subitize—that is, to immediately see how many without counting, a key factor relating to young children’s math ability.
Finger games promote children’s understanding of early math concepts, from counting to composing and decomposing number (the foundation of addition and subtraction). When children use their fingers to count, they are strengthening their number knowledge and their ability to visualize numbers in their minds. Finger games can be played anytime, anywhere, since your fingers are always with you!
Here are some math games for children to enjoy using dot cards and fingers. Observe children as they play, and use the information in the “Things to notice as children play” sections of each game to learn more about the mathematics supported while children play these games.
About the Creator
SPACE OF EARTH
Humans are filling up the area round Earth with trash. ARCHIVE: “three, two...” Decades of house exploration that started with a single satellite tv for pc launch in 1957... ARCHIVE: “One of the splendid scientific feats of the age.” Have left discarded rocket bodies, mission-related particles and heaps of satellites – many of them lengthy deserted and no longer useful – crisscrossing at excessive speeds simply above Earth's atmosphere. And with a booming house enterprise launching extra objects into orbit than ever before, this crowding is progressively growing the chance of catastrophic in-orbit collisions. Scientists fear that a runaway chain response of collisions and fragmentation may want to one day fill Earth's orbit with so lots particles that area will end up unusable to humans. It's why the world's main area businesses and some for-profit businesses are working on massive thoughts to restore our house particles problem. From trash accumulating spacecraft armed with harpoons and nets... to a large cloud of steel dust. And there may be one answer it is been proposed for years to halt these unsafe bits of rubbish in their tracks. Lasers. Because if we get innovative and begin addressing this trouble proper now, we can nevertheless repair it earlier than it is too late. The sizeable majority of human-made objects surrounding Earth are right here – in a area referred to as “low Earth orbit.” It's the place we have verbal exchange satellites, plus spacecraft like the International Space Station. And our big quantity of house trash. The extra objects we put in house capacity greater possibilities of these objects smash into every other, smash apart, and multiply. And all it takes is a handful of fragmentation occasions to dramatically make bigger the whole variety of objects orbiting Earth. Like in 2009, when a defunct Russian satellite tv for pc by accident collided with a industrial satellite, exploding into hundreds of trackable fragments. And in 2007, when China deliberately destroyed one of its very own satellites in a weapons test. Which additionally resulted in tens of heaps of fragments of various sizes of debris. A theoretical cascade impact known as the "Kessler syndrome," delivered in the 1970s, warned that if sufficient incidents like these occur, the fragments of particles they create ought to set off an uncontrollable variety of catastrophic collisions. Exponentially growing the subject of particles round Earth. But we can nonetheless repair this earlier than it is too late. And there is a few methods it should happen. The way to get rid of most area particles is to sluggish it down adequate to fall out of orbit and into Earth's atmosphere, the place it burns up and is destroyed. But exceptional sized area junk requires unique methods to do this. The largest bits of house particles measure greater than 10 centimeters in dimension This consists of lifeless satellites, rocket our bodies and huge portions of particles created in the course of house missions. These are massive sufficient to be tracked from Earth. And scientists are creating tiny spacecraft that can attain these objects and sluggish them down, the use of more than a few techniques to both push or pull them. Guiding them down to Earth's environment to be destroyed. Commercial agencies like Europe's ClearSpace and Japan's Astroscale are working with international house businesses on this tech. Hoping to reveal the elimination of massive particles someday in the subsequent decade. The two smaller classifications of house particles typically come from fragmentation activities like explosions and collisions.
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