Guide to Math Homeschool Materials for Preschoolers

I’m often asked about the math homeschool materials we used at home (for preschoolers), so I made this list and hope it will serve as your guide in finding the right educational materials for your homeschool or classroom adventure.  I believe that we need to expose our kids to math early on by giving them the appropriate learning materials to explore and discover.  These materials will introduce your child to nine major math concepts:  numbers and quantity, shapes and patterns, picture graphs, length, time, money, fractions, mass and volume.

NUMBERS AND COUNTERS

We own most of the materials in the list and you’ve probably seen these in my posts.  Popular items often used are the counters and Montessori math materials.  These materials will introduce your child to the number symbols and quantity.

1. Counters:  mini motors, dinos, fish, fruits, garden critters, bugs, transparent chips, bears
2. Rainbow Abacus
3. Foam Dot Dice
4. Polyhedral Dice
5. Soft Number Dice
6. Hape Number Puzzle
7. Link Cubes
8. Self Correcting Wooden Number Puzzles
9. T-Rex Jigsaw Number Puzzle
10. Munchkin Letters and Numbers
11. Montessori Sandpaper Numbers
12. Montessori Number Rods
13. Montessori Cards and Counters
14. Pegs and Number Boards

SHAPES AND PATTERNS

Kids love shapes and learning of shapes can later on morph into patterning. These are beautiful learning materials to help your child in shape recognition (beginning of geometry), pattern skills, and abstract reasoning.

1. View Thru Geometric Solids
2. Plan Wooden Shape Sorter
3. Melissa and Doug Pattern Blocks and Boards
4. Translucent Geometric Shapes perfect for light table/pad
5. Wooden or Plastic Pattern Blocks
6. Melissa and Doug Jumbo Knob Wooden Puzzle
7. Learning Resources Shapes Don’t Bug Me
8. Wooden Magnetic Pattern Blocks
9. Beginner Pattern Blocks
10. Montessori Insets Shape Puzzles (Toddler)
11. Montessori Metal Insets
12. Montessori Geometric Solids
13. Plan Toy Geometric Peg Board
14. GEOMags
15. Beads and Pattern Card Set
16. Shape Buttons
17. Magnatiles
18. Tap and Tack Hammering Play Set

You can check on some activities that we had here:  introducing geometric shapes, 2D shapes using GEOMags, introducing shapes to toddlers, shapes and sticks and kinetic sand with 3D shapes.

PICTURE GRAPHS

In our case, this is homemade. I’ve seen most of these in workbooks/worksheets and since I don’t want to give that to Vito yet, I made our own.  This is an important skill in mathematics and should be introduced to a child early on in life to prepare him for future work on data gathering and assessment.  When I say introduce, I give it in a form of play or hands-on activity that the child can enjoy. Take a look at some of the play based math activities in my blog below:

• Autumn Themed Graphing Game
• Introducing Picture Graph
• Dinosaur Graphing Game

LENGTH

Another important skill that shouldn’t be missed!  My kids love using tape measures and I bought each one of them so they can do measuring activities on their own.  For Mavi, he loves to measure his height and the furniture at home, and for Vito it is all “pretend”.  But you see, even if it’s just pretend, he is grasping the concept of “length” and the material that is used with it.  A sample of measuring activities can be found here.

1. Tape measure (preschooler)
2. Tape measure (gradeschool)
3. Measuring Monkey
4. Measuring Motors
5. Ruler

TIME

Telling the time is essential as this is part of our daily life.  Kids see clocks or watches all the time and they are more curious about it especially when Moms and Dads are always talking about it.  My little Vito got exposed to the concept of time because of his brother, whenever I wake him up in the morning he’s saying “it’s 8 o’clock”.  He got even more interested with the clock when I bought Mavi a learning clock, thus I got him one too for exploration and familiarity.

1. Melissa and Doug Wooden Clock
2. Melissa and Doug Shape Clock 
3. Learning Clock (for older kids)
4. Regular Alarm Clock
5. Sand Timer
6. Student Clock

You can check my posts on Telling Time for Preschoolers, Learning About Time with Free Printables and Telling Time Activities using a Learning clock.

MONEY

Money is just so easy to introduce. If you bring your kids to the grocery everyday, they will somehow grasp the concept of money by seeing you “pay” something in exchange for the goods you bring at home.  I think this is one of the best ways you can teach your kids about the concept.  Other than that, provide an opportunity for your child to play pretend like in a grocery shop.  My kids love it!  We have this fruit baskets from Learning Resources and has been used often times in play pretend.

1. Euro Play Money
2. US Dollar Play Money
3. Wooden Cash Register
4. Learning Resources Cash Register

Here are some posts on learning about money:  Caps for Sale and Euro coins

FRACTIONS

We don’t do this often, but I did introduce this to Mavi early on but not to Vito yet.  You can check it here (How to Teach Fractions with Manipulatives).

1. Magnetic Fraction Pie
2. Fraction Tile Tray
3. Fraction Squares
4. Guidecraft Fraction
5. Fraction Tower

MASS

We have a weighing scale at home and the boys used it a lot in their play pretend games so Vito was introduced to the concept of heavy and light using this material months back.  Here are some of the materials you can use to help your kids explore this concept:

1. Bucket Balance
2. Scale Balance
3. Weights
4. Number Balance
5. Wooden Balance

Check how we used our bucket balance in measuring the mass of an object.

VOLUME AND CAPACITY

Though this may sound “academic” but there are fun ways to introduce this concept of measuring liquid to your child by using any of these materials:

1. Graduated Cylinders
2. Jumbo Test Tubes
3. Liquid Measure
4. Learning Resources Mix and Measuring Set
5. Liquid Volume Measuring Set

By the way these graduated cylinders can also be used by your child to practice pouring. And that’s about it!! Tell me what you think and if you have other suggestions I would love to hear from you through the comments section.