Through exposure to math activities in preschool, children gain an understanding of one-to-one correspondence, which is the cornerstone of mathematics instruction, as it enables children to understand how much a specific number represents. This information is necessary for performing more in depth mathematical operations, including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This correspondence is used on a daily basis for ordering numbers and counting out a specific number of items.
Preschoolers learn how to make sense of numbers when they are presented with mathematical activities. Number sense includes not only being able to count in order both forward and backward, but also refers to the ability to determine greater than, less than and equal to. These skills are essential for more complex mathematical studies that children will learn beyond the preschool years, or for simply determining a better price on an item in a store.
Patterning is typically a pre-math skill that children begin learning in preschool. Students learn how to recognize and create patterns, through pictures, or with manipulatives. For example, students demonstrate an understanding of patterns when they arrange foam shapes in a triangle, square, triangle, square sequence. It is important for more advanced concepts, such as skip counting, multiplication and algebra. For example, children can recognize the pattern of fives when skip counting or multiplying by fives.
Through math activities, preschoolers can learn how to sort items based on their attributes. For example, they can learn how to sort items based on size, shape or color. This is a skill that is beneficial for helping children learn how items are the same and different, not only in math, but in the world, in general. For instance, in the everyday world, children can group the same types of foods together and in the mathematical world, they can group together numbers that begin or end with like numbers.