How do you nurture confidence in maths?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

DH and I are both very artsy and we do a lot of arts and humanities related stuff with preschool age DD1 - DH is forever showing her quirky indie music, his family are professional musicians and mess about on the piano with her, she does basic French at nursery, we read loads etc.

But.... I feel that the input is all arts stuff and she will grow up, like me, lacking confidence in science and esp maths. I am not good at mental arithmetic, poor sense of spatial awareness and direction. There was no discussion of maths when I was growing up, just languages and culture.

How do you build maths confidence from an early age?

Games, games, games and more games.

Driving in the car, how many red cars, blue cars ect.....can you see out the window.

Shopping, how much does this and that cost togeather, how much change. Count X amount of items into the trolly.what does the time say.

Time, how many minutes will it take to do task, what time will it be complete then.

Count steps going up stairs, there are so many ways.

Provide opportunities where they can do the maths easily. Once they see they can do it they will feel confident and want to do it more.

Cooking & baking—fractions, measurement, estimating, & much more. Plus there is loads of maths in art—how much do you need for what you are going to make? Perspective, scale—you don’t need to push it but when the topics are covered in school they will have some experience to link it to & it won’t seem abstract or useless.

Yip, games.

Pebble counting then number games with pebbles ( divide between 2, share between 3) . Jill and john each have 3 pebbles, how many do they have together. Which line /shape has more pebbles

Playing shop. How many, how much

Treasu hunts based on maps

Experiment - how to clean coins..wash, leave in water, leave in soapy water, leave in coke or vodka or Make cinder toffee

And try to praise, but don't put yourself down ( because children will assume that if you find something hard then they will too)

Thanks all! Just getting back to this.

Yeah, you are all right. I think it is just a habit of mind. Eg when we are out and about I will say, oh look at x, now what rhymes with it? And we come up with as many silly rhymes as we can. Or, how do you say that in French?

But I don't habitually count things, take them away and say how many etc.

Baking also a really good idea.

Thanks!

How old is she?

Don't ever say "I hate maths/I'm no good at maths/I never understood maths at school" etc. Maths teachers end up having to try and get kids over the maths fear their parents have instilled in them, as well as trying to actually teach them.

I tell my dd frequently how good she is at numbers etc. I really struggle to get past my mental "I cant do maths" block and i want her to start school with a positive attitude to it already built in to her mindset.