In response to requests from Parent Educators and other family support professionals (FSPs), the Early Math and Numeracy Lab has created materials to support FSPs’ professional development around early mathematics. These materials include activities for family support professionals to use to promote parent engagement in early mathematics. All activities are available at no cost, on the Institute of Child Development’s Math and Numeracy Lab website, for private use with families and caregivers. These materials may not be reproduced or distributed for any for-profit effort without explicit permission from lead developers, Drs. Wackerle-Hollman and Mazzocco.
The activities center on three themes: Math Dispositions, Early Math Topics, and Finding Math in Everyday Life. We developed five or more activities per theme, and will be adding these to the website gradually. Per theme, we created a variety of activities to accommodate different family support professional environments (classrooms with groups of parents and other caregivers, home visits with one or two caregivers, etc.). Currently, one activity per theme is available on this website. Check back for more activities throughout Spring 2023!
Although the activities were designed to align with training modules we have also developed, the activities can be used independent of completing the training modules. We are currently conducting an evaluation study of the training modules, and will make the modules available on this website at a future date. In the meantime, you are welcome to explore the Family Support Professionals Activities for your own use with families, caregivers, and other family support professionals.
Set 1: How Attitudes and Dispositions may Affect Early Math
Children are intuitive mathematical thinkers, and so are the adults around them! Children also enjoy and naturally engage in mathematical play. But do children view themselves as able to do math, or as being good at math? Do they think of math as something interesting, fun, and important? How about the adults around them? How do adults’ dispositions towards mathematics potentially influence the way children in their care think about math, and about being a mathematical thinker? Set 1 activities were designed to help FSPs and caregivers explore these and related questions.
Activity 1.1 Everyone Succeeds
Activity 1.2 Flipping the Script
Activity 1.3 Mathitudes
Activity 1.4 Learning from Math Mistakes
Activity 1.5 Comments, Questions, and Conversations (CQCs)
Activity 1.6 Attitude Adjustments
Activity 1.7 We’re All Math People
Set 2: Math is Numbers and More: Exploring Early Math Topics
Numbers and counting are foundational to mathematics, and children naturally show an interest in both. Even infants attend to and seem to understand quantities, and arithmetic, and that number words have to do with “how many.” But there are other equally important math topics. The Set 2 activities were designed to support FSPs and caregivers explore different mathematics topics and the ways these topics surface in early mathematics.
Activity 2.1 Math Kaleidoscope
Activity 2.2 Early Math Topics
Activity 2.3 Picturing Math
Activity 2.4 Measuring Up!
Activity 2.5 Toddlers Under Construction
Set 3: Finding Math in Everyday Life
Once a parent or caregiver becomes more familiar with the early math topics and becomes more aware of the importance of early mathematics, it is easier for them to be intentional about noticing the mathematics in children’s thinking, play, and everyday life. The goal of this intentionality is NOT about turning everyday routines into formal math lessons, but rather to notice and talk about the math that emerges in everyday life, model problem solving, and help children learn to use math language to describe their mathematical thinking and play. The Set 3 activities are designed to help FSPs and caregivers identify mathematics in their everyday routines and to practice talking about the math in ways that may build children’s mathematical thinking and language.
Activity 3.1 Early Math Success Stories
Activity 3.2 Math Snacks
Activity 3.3 Becoming a Math Detective
Activity 3.4 Make a Statement with Math
Activity 3.5 Everyday Math in Action
Activity 3.6 Routines Roadmap
About the authors
Michèle Mazzocco is a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, where she leads the Math and Numeracy Lab.
Alisha Wackerle-Hollman is an assistant research professor in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Educational Psychology.
Contributors
ICD doctoral students Sarah E. Pan, M.A., and Jasmine R. Ernst, M.S. contributed to developing these activities.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Heising-Simons Foundation DREME Network Awards 2018-0670 and 2020-1777 to M. Mazzocco. We thank parent and family support professional consultants who provided feedback and those who welcomed us (and our activities) into their classrooms. We also thank Yiyang Ke who provided exceptional graphics design support.