Five Math Skills Your Child Will Learn in Kindergarten
As your child heads into kindergarten, you’ll be feeling all sorts of emotions. You may be wondering: How can my baby be that old? Are they ready? What exactly are they going to learn in kindergarten?
While kindergarten may have changed since you were a child, it still forms the foundation of your child’s schooling and we wrote earlier about how to prepare for a successful start to the school adventure.
In math, students will learn the basics of how numbers work while exploring place value and the concepts of addition and subtraction.
But there’s no need to figure everything out as your child does - this article will help you get a head start by knowing what to expect.
In kindergarten your child will learn how to:
1. Count to 100
Going into the school year, your child may be able to orally count to 10 or beyond. By the end of kindergarten, expect that counting to advance to 100. But don’t worry, we’re only talking about counting orally. Your kindergartner will not be expected to write all the numbers to 100.
In most kindergarten classrooms, teachers count the days of school with the children. By counting each day, children gradually become more fluent with bigger and bigger numbers. At the end of 100 days, kindergarten classrooms often have a big celebration with many more opportunities for counting.
2. Answer “how many?” questions about groups of objects
As well as counting to 100, kindergartners will be asked to count how many objects are in a group. Students need to be able to physically count objects one at a time, assigning one number to each object as they count. This is a skill called one-to-one correspondence.
3. Solve basic addition and subtraction problems
In kindergarten, children start to develop an understanding of addition and subtraction within 10. Kindergartners start by solving problems involving physical objects, and as the year goes on, students learn to draw pictures to represent addition and subtraction problems. They will even begin to solve simple word problems.
4. Understand the numbers 11-19 as a ten plus some ones
Though it may seem quite advanced, your kindergartner will begin to understand the concept of place value and that position makes some numbers bigger than others - ie get to grips with the idea that 21 is bigger than 12. Students may use place value blocks to be able to “see” how ten ones become a ten.
5. Name shapes
Kindergartners will learn about 2D and 3D shapes. They should be able to name different shapes while describing their features. Kindergartners love to recognize shapes in the real world!
Throughout the year, make sure to ask your child about what’s happening in kindergarten math. Give your child an opportunity to teach you by sharing what he or she has learned. Get ready for a fun year in kindergarten!
Found this useful? Check out our grade by grade math guides from Kindergarten to 5th grade
Written by Lily Jones, Lily loves all things learning. She has been a kindergarten & first grade teacher, instructional coach, curriculum developer, and teacher trainer. She loves to look at the world with curiosity and inspire people of all ages to love learning. She lives in California with her husband, two kids, and a little dog.
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