Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Basic Math for a 2 y.o.?

Should I introduce my 2 y.o. son to basic math? He really loves numbers. He can count to 100 and knows up to a billion (reading the numbers and knowing what the placements mean). This was the result of a very interesting place mat he got as a gift and nursery rhymes and songs I guess. He recognizes numbers in any random order and reads them everywhere. Street numbers, license plates, etc... He understands that 40 represents 40 of something, etc... He can count, but now he can just look and something and tell me how many (12 or less). So do I show him that 1+1=2? I have a feeling he may already inherently know this. Sometimes I am amazed at what he already knows.

IMO, understanding that 1+1=2 is as simple as understanding what 1, 2, +, and = mean. I don't think it's worth teaching, but I also don't necessarily see anything wrong with introducing the terminology. I would definitely not start any sort of lessons, though. Lessons can aid in rote memorization, but I don't think that they do much to develop a child's number sense.

One way I helped introduce simple math to my now four year old son, when he was your son's age, was in the context of simple games. So if we would play, for instance, our super version of "Punch Buggy", we would get points as follows (it was actually his idea to do this):

1 point for new-model punch buggies (Volkswagen Beetles), Mini Coopers, smart cars, and ridden motorcycles
2 points for old-model punch buggies, planes, and helicopters

He was very early on good at keeping track of everyone's different scores. Then I would increase his number awareness and recall (which was already pretty good) with a recap: "So I've seen 2 punch buggies and 1 plane, which gives 2 points for punch buggies and 2 points for the one plane, totaling 4, right? And you've got..." He quickly picked that up to the point of memorizing categories of what every person had seen, then we were on to the next thing. (Honestly, I think he had developed pretty good number sense even before this, so it was mostly a memory exercise at that stage.)

In my case I really didn't try to develop his math talent much at all, just generally keep him thinking about numbers at odd times and in little ways, but he naturally became more interested in it. What I did do was give him lots of interesting things to play with, so he'd learn how things fit together.

I think that if your son shows math talent, letting him play with some manipulatives would let him develop his own number sense, along with some other foundational skills for math. You might also check out the math websites. My son is currently having a lot of fun picking and choosing things on the ixl.com website (loves the patterns, etc. but predictably not the boring drills).

no5no5: I like what you said about rote memorization and not really learning anything of any value. I don't want to do that to my kid. I never thought of it for addition, but I guess if one can memorize multiplication tables then the same thing can be done for any type of equation.
locounu: I like the "Punch Buggy" idea. It sounds fun. I'll have to check out that website too.
Thanks for your ideas! :-)

I would just follow his lead and keep it fun. Play games - add grapes at the table, find patterns in the flowers at the park, skip count money, cut apples into fractions, if each of your 3 friends gets 2 balls how many balls do you need? etc. I guess You could get him number magnets to play with though. Look at what he's learned already on his own! I wouldn't formally introduce math at this age. I also have a math gifted kid, and this is the kind of stuff I did with him as a preschooler and he was well ahead in math by kindergarten.

Cooking together. Soon, you two can double or half recipes.

I don't think any reason not introduce him math fact

I did it when my son was 2, soon he mastered all addtion and substraction, then I have to introduce him the times table by the time he was 3 and half, he absolutly loved it, then division, fraction.....

Follow his lead, if he like it, provide the books or whatever, he will tell you when he is ready to learn

I think just give him the opportunity to play with numbers in any way he likes. I certainly wouldn't drill math facts, but you may find if you introduce a sum game he clamours to play it - or not, and that's fine. My DS used to love specifying how many of something to eat he wanted (grapes, cherry tomatoes, peas...), and would announce how many more he needed, how many he'd eaten, how many he had left, etc... I remember drawing the line at counting out 97 peas or something some time.

Don't be surprised, by the way, if he has a long fallow phase in which he likes numbers for counting and maybe simple sums but isn't very keen on doing more with them. My DS, like yours, got numbers early, but then his attention was diverted onto teaching himself to read - a highly mathematical process, if you think about it - and for a couple of years I thought maybe he wasn't destined to be very mathy. Boy was I wrong - when he got interested again, he went off like a rocket (basing everything on a totally solid understanding of number that other children didn't seem to have). I'm glad I didn't push him to maintain the interest while it was lying low. Of course YMMV.

The one other thing that I didn't see mentioned was talking about fractions while you cut things like toast, fruit, or pizza. You don't need to actively teach, just talk out loud about what you are doing when you are slicing. This works great if there happen to be siblings with whom they share.

You could read some math storybooks to him (there's a great list at the Living Math website).

mm