Parenting in Focus: Everyday math for preschoolers

Published 1:30 am Friday, February 20, 2026

By Cynthia Martin

Before your child enters kindergarten, she will likely already know a great deal about math. Many preschoolers can count to 10 or 20, recognize shapes such as circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, cubes, and even pyramids, and identify coins like pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Concepts such as long and short, tall and small, light and heavy, more and less, wide and narrow often become familiar well before kindergarten.

As you raise your preschooler, you will also naturally talk about ideas like inside and outside, left and right, middle, above and below, and top and bottom. You may help her notice what is the same and what is different, or group objects by color or size. All of this is math.

The important thing is to talk about these ideas — but they don’t need to feel like lessons. They are simply part of everyday conversation. When you ask your child to hand you the toy on the left, that’s math. When you ask whether the big box or the small box holds more toys, that’s math. When you give her money to buy something, she is learning about value. When you ask her to put the cereal on the top shelf or the bottom shelf, she is learning mathematical language. You may not realize it, but you are already a very good math teacher.

The conversations you have with your child make her smarter in many ways — not just in math. She learns about stars when you point out the night sky. She learns about the world every time she asks a question and you take time to answer it. She learns about plants when you notice bulbs pushing up in the spring or buds forming on branches. She learns new words each time you talk with her or read a book together — especially when you ask questions about the story.

She also learns manners when you gently guide her response to a gift from Grandma. These lessons come from everyday moments. There are even more opportunities when you visit places like the Makah Museum, the Feiro Marine Life Center, or the Dungeness River Nature Center. Children whose parents, grandparents, and neighbors take time to talk with them are given a powerful advantage. Imagine how much more ready they will be for school than a child who doesn’t have those experiences.

When we say that you are your child’s first teacher, we truly mean it.