A good book/website for maths for a 4yo?

[Butterpiecrimearea]

4yo DD1 is doing that "leaping forward" thing with maths atm...she keeps sitting with bricks etc saying "there's 2, add 1, that's 3, add 2 more, that's 5, then we take away 4, that's 1" and so on, and out of curiousity, when she had four bricks, I asked her to share them out between two shoes (I dunno, it's what I had to hand!) and she did that, then i started asking her the adding and subtracting question without the bricks, and she got them right too...

So, she is one of these kids that doesn't get something for ages and then it is like a lightbulb goes on, and of course I would like to help her while she is in the mood, so where can I find out the best way to do this?

She will be going to school in a few months, so ideally a way that fits in with school methods, although that's hardly the most important thing... just want her to think maths is fun, basically, and to enjoy solving problems.

[hockeyforjockeys]

Books probably not a good idea, maths is done in a very informal way in reception (ie play and practical based) and you have the potential to turn her off if you start too earlier with written methods. My best advice is keep doing what you are doing, and do lots of real life stuff like cooking (measuring and weighing), getting her interested in money and change when you go shopping, spotting numbers when you are out and about, starting to recognise time to the hour on clocks, ordering toys in height/size order etc.

[Butterpiecrimearea]

I'm not really meaning for her, more for me - I just want to check that I'm not going to end up confusing her. With reading, I've kind of made myself aware of the NC, and so when we deviate from it (which of course we do - this is real life, and buses etc don't turn up in order of s, a, t, p, n, i, and I'm not formally teaching her) I am at least aware that is what we are doing. With things like history, politics, philosophy, literature etc, obviously she just joins in with what is going on and asks questions (giving them posh names seems odd - we just get on with it, like I'm sure most families do) and every now and again we'll play a game (eg today's "music curriculum" was a game where we took turns to close our eyes and guess if a note on the toy xylophone was higher or lower than the last one). No idea if that is on the NC or not, but I'm hardly going to ban her from these things, am I?

I'm rambling, sorry - I mean, with maths being such a "core" thing, I could do with some guidelines - there are loads for phonics, but I've not seen any for maths (beyond teaching them to count to ten)

She adores "puzzle books" though - she actually asks to get them out. She loves doing things like the worksheet bits in cbeebies magazine and her Jolly Phonics workbooks etc, and she asks me to print off sheets from places like nature detectives and reading eggs. I was the same, but I was a bit older - I remember doing the "puzzles" in my Dad's O Level maths book. I'm no maths genius, but I enjoyed it and hated boring school maths, so it must have done me some good, as I still like a good puzzle :)

[hockeyforjockeys]

I really wouldn't get hung up on the NC - it's actually pretty broad in terms of coverage, and just about anything you do related to the subjects on it will fit. Whatever you do if it is practical and enjoyable will be good for her (and yes puzzles are definitely a good idea, I would just try your local book shop for those as they really don't need to be school specific). My main plea is just not to try and teach any specific 'method', as schools do things in lots of different ways, and I know from experience it is a bloody nightmare trying to unpack a half taught method that doesn't tie in with ours. One website that is good though is nrich.maths.org/public/ which has loads of problem solving ideas for early years all the way to A Level. You can use it to get ideas for some practical investigations for her age. One other thing you can look at is the vocabulary list that the national strategies nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/84996. It isn't compulsory, but a lot of schools use it as guidance and it will give you an idea of terms that she will be coming across when she starts school.

[RoadArt]

Jump AHead series of CD games - brilliant

Websites - paying - EducationCity.com and Whizz.com. Whizz is probably too expensive for 4 year olds.
You can trial both, but Education City, practice at different year levels during the trial before you make a commitment, if you do.

Lots of really good free websites as well. At this age, variety of websites is probably better rather than commiting to a year with any one.

type maths KS1 games in your search engine.

Good luck