Most activities for piano are aimed at children starting primary school. So I decided to put together a print-out aimed at 2.5 to 5 year olds with some information and activities that are suitable for this age group. My child might be too young for formal music lessons, but that doesn't mean I can't show her the piano and help her understand what it's all about.
There is colouring, cutting and pasting, looking for simple patterns, pretending to be animals, and foolproof instructions to help you help your child play a couple of simple nursery rhymes (for very young children, they might rest their hand on top of yours while you play it, or you might help move their finger to press the right keys). Incidentally, we get to know our way around the piano!
You should be able to do this print out with your child even if you have no previous background in piano or music. It's pretty self-explanatory.
You will need a piano that has black and white keys. If you don't have one, K-Mart sells kids electronic keyboards for about $20 that are perfect for this kind of thing (although 'growly notes' will sound less growly).
So without further ado, here is a PDF file that you can download and print-out to entertain your older toddler / preschooler on a rainy day:
Kids generally get the hang of counting
some time between the age of 2 and 4 – this means proper counting, not just the
ability to recite numbers in the counting order. It means if you asked your child to bring you
6 objects, they could do it (provided they were inclined to, of course!) I did a blog post here about all the things a
child has to get their head around before they can really count.
If your child gets the hang of the counting thing roundabout 4yo, they may well like to start doing things like workbooks straight away. But if they are only a toddler, these kind of activities will be completely unsuitable.
If you have a toddler who can count and are
wondering what number activities to do next, here are some ideas:
Abacus - we
got an affordable and durable abacus through RightStart Mathematics (we actually got the abacus as a gift with the maths games kit for $50, but the abacus by itself is $15 and after 6 months is still in great condition). It has 10 rows of 10s grouped into 5s by
colour. Initially she liked just sliding
the beads about, but then she liked to practice sliding 2 or 3 or 10 at a
time. It was easy for her to see the
number 10 at a glance, and for us to count by 10s to 100. I wrote the numbers 10, 20, 30… down to 100
down the side of the abacus so she could start to associate these with the
quantities. We showed different people’s
ages on the abacus. The great thing
about the abacus over other place value and counting toys like Montessori beads
or MAB blocks is that: a) it’s way cheaper, and b) you don’t
have small parts you can lose.
Reading
Letterboxes - on walks we had always stopped to spot numbers on
letterboxes. Now we started to do double
digit numbers. We’d identify which
number was in the tens place and which was in the ones place, ask ‘what are 3
tens called?’, then put it together… ‘ah, so this must be thirty…five!’ There are about 15 double digit letter boxes
between our house and the playground, so this was a perfect length activity for
a toddler. Another favourite ‘found
numbers’ game was reading all the table number signs at cafes, and we spotted
speed signs on a long bus ride.
Numbers and Geometry - she didn’t show any interest in fractions until Christmas, when Santa brought
her a bunch of puzzles, including this fraction puzzle…
We’ve talked through how the bottom number is
the number of pieces the circle is divided into, and the top number says this
is just one piece. I then started
talking about halves, quarters, thirds, fifths etc as I cut up her food and she
has taken to this very keenly, and now likes to request how many pieces her
food is cut into ‘cut it into fifths!’
We also count the sides and corners of shapes.
Finger
Counting - It is a real challenge for toddlers to learn how to hold
some fingers up and keep others down. 1
and 5 are easy, 2 is not too hard, but 3 and 4 are really tricky. Learning how to do this provided hours of
entertainment. Now she likes to
accompany saying any of the numbers 1 to 5 with a representation of the number
on her fingers. More recently she has
become interested in holding up some combination of fingers on both hands and
asking what that is. Another good way of
involving movement and counting is stomping or clapping numbers. There is some evidence that finger counting spatially cements number concepts that form the basis for more advanced mental mathematics as the child grows older.
Numbers Songs and
Rhymes - Five Little Ducks is a great one and can be acted out on
your fingers. My sister also got Bethany
a mummy duck puppet with five baby duck finger puppets which were a lot of
fun. Beyond 5 numbers, Yellow Is The Sun teaches
the numbers from 6-10 as 5 + 1, 5 + 2 etc.
The song is supposed to go with the abacus but it’s easy to do on your
fingers too. Alice the Camel counts
backwards from 10. 1-2 Buckle My Shoe
emphasises counting in groups of two. I
also made up derivative rhymes like: ‘2-4-6-8, Hurry Hurry Don’t Be Late,
12-14-16-18, Hurry Now Don’t Keep Us Waiting’.
Sorting -
Sorting objects into groups is the precursor to being able to group
numbers. Bethany mostly likes to sort by
colour but will sort by shape if encouraged.
I bought a bunch of craft supplies, including coloured little pom-poms
and buttons, and gave her different coloured containers to sort them into.
Number line - It is easy to make a toddler sized number line on the ground using pavement
chalk. You can hop along the numbers,
saying them as you go, or collect numbers of objects that match with the
numbers on the line.
Play shop -
We set up a pretend shop where one person is the shop owner and the other is
the customer. Items are exchanged for
tokens which are counted out (tan bark or gumnuts if you are in a
playground). Expect to always be
required to hand over change, no matter if you paid exactly.
Play with
coins - Bethany has always loved to play with the coins in my wallet,
but now she is interested in the fact they have numbers on them, and sorting
similar coins together. We talk about
what the numbers are called and how the gold coins are worth more than the silver
ones. She does not understand how to add
up 50c and 20c, but she understands that if something costs 50c, she can pay
for it with a 50c coin.
Clock games - A model clock where you can move
the hands is great for learning the numbers 1 to 12. Again, we got a bargain basement one through
RightStart Mathematics, but you could easily make one yourself with some
cardboard and a split pin. Focus just on
telling the time to the hour, including working out the hour if some of the
numbers from the clock face are missing.
If you can remove the minute hand from the clock entirely, that is less
confusing for a beginner. Talk about the
kinds of things that happen at different times of the day. Compare an analog clock with a digital clock
and explain how the numbers correspond.
