5 - 7 Years Math

Your little love is about to become a big kid! They’re likely heading off to kindergarten soon, and you won’t believe the progress they’ll make this year. From social-emotional growth to academic learning and more advanced coordination, your kids will soon be skipping, hopping, writing, and even reading a few words! While kids develop at their own pace, below is a list of new skills many five-year-olds will acquire over this exciting year:

Social-Emotional Skills

As your kindergartner continues to assert their independence, they’ll become better and more enthusiastic helpers. Let them pitch in wherever you can, even if it means a bit more work for you after the fact. Over the next year, your handy helper will get even better at:

• Following directions (they might even be excited to do so!)
• Helping with chores like setting the table, sweeping the floor, or washing (non-breakable) dishes
• Knowing the difference between fantasy and reality
• Doing things themselves, like getting dressed (YES!), eating, and using the bathroom.
• Sitting still and listening for 15 minutes

Language Skills

At this age, your child may become quite the chatterbox. Their speech is likely to be clear, their vocabularies are extensive, and their descriptions are becoming more vivid. They’ll also probably learn to:

• Match the beginning and ending sounds of words to the appropriate letters
• Use correct grammar most of the time (with some funny mistakes)
• Use the correct tenses – past, present, future
• Use the correct pronouns – he, his, they, theirs, etc
• Answer and talk on the phone

Cognitive Skills

This year, many five-year-olds will enter kindergarten, where their social, emotional, and academic skills will blossom beyond belief. Some of the things your little one might master this year include:

• Drawing and cutting out simple shapes
• Using relational words like under, over, and next to
• Writing upper and lowercase letters, words, name
• Adding and subtracting numbers under five (practice with cookies – it’s highly effective!)
• Reading several sight words

Physical Skills

While fine motor skills take longer to develop, your five-year-old’s gross motor skills will grow by leaps and bounds (literally) this year! Below are a few of the strides your child may make over the next year or so:

• Balancing on one foot for a few seconds with their eyes closed
• Hopping on one foot, skipping, and even jumping rope
• Using a fork, butter knife, and spoon correctly
• Zipping their zipper (hooray!)
• Tying their shoes

Your big kid will learn so much in school, and you can reinforce that learning at home! Play games together, count the cars you pass on the street, find the letter “O” in the stop sign, and read, read, and then read some more. But be sure to make plenty of time for play, movement, and snuggles. You can also track your child’s milestones by age with the CDC’s mobile milestone app!

Skill Builders! Hands-on Learning for Kindergarteners

Watching my son go through Kindergarten several years ago, I learned about teaching fundamental reading, writing, and math concepts. I remember being surprised at the sheer amount of repetition, but on reflection, that makes sense as a means of helping children to build lasting and robust learning foundations. As learning topics are taught for long periods at the Kindergarten age, it can be helpful for parents and teachers to have a variety of resources to support reading, writing, and Math learning. We were able to have a closer look at the Learning Resources® Kindergarten Skill Builders! Reading, Writing, and Math Sets.

Building Readers

The Skill Builders! Kindergarten Reading Set encourages children to learn through quick and fun hands-on activities. The accompanying activity guide explains a range of ideas, but the materials included can be used in any way you wish. The set includes lowercase letter tiles, letter dice and word ending dice, letter frame, sight word flip cards, sight word picture, sentence cards, and a selection of paper worksheets.

The letter frame was the focal point of all three activities we did with this set. My son chose which combination of materials to use, and for the first activity, he wanted to use the sight word sentence and picture cards, the letter tiles, and the letter frame. He liked the idea of choosing a sight word card, reading the word, and then recreating it on the letter frame. As he added each letter, he told me the name and the sound it made, followed by how to blend the sounds. He liked getting to build the letter with the tiles physically, which was good for his fine motor skills. After making the sight word, he flipped over the card and read out the sentence.

My son's second activity was to use the sight word flip cards. He thought it was pretty neat that he could flip through so many words; we even used them for a fun 60-second flip and shout-out sight word challenge which he thought was fun. We then used them along with the letter tiles and letter frame to build the words as he flipped through the cards. I added an extra challenge for him by telling him a complete sentence with the sight word in it.

The final way we enjoyed this set was to use the foam letter and word ending dice to create words. My son would roll the two dice and then say the word before building it on the letter frame with the letter tiles. He liked the spontaneity of this activity.

Building Writers

The Skill Builders! Kindergarten Writing Set lends itself well to actually 'building' letters, which was incredibly engaging for my son. The set includes mini letter construction pieces and corresponding cards, a write-and-wipe board, a writing prompt spinner, a Learn to Write! dry erase book and a set of Learning Resources Tri-Grip Tongs. The tongs may not seem like the most obvious item to include, but this fine motor tool is specifically designed to help small hand muscles to strengthen ready for writing. Both my kids love using them in sensory bins and for sorting activities. A detailed activity guide is also included.

My son couldn't wait to use the small construction pieces to build letters from the cards. It is really helpful how each card shows the pieces needed and how to build the upper and lowercase letters. The pieces snap together easily and are good quality. 

As he built the letters, I asked him to tell me the letter's name and what sound it makes. My daughter, who is in preschool, also enjoyed using these pieces. She liked using the write-and-wipe board, so I extended the activity by letting her also write the upper and lowercase letters that she had built on the board.

My preschooler then discovered that there was an entire dry-erase workbook. She loved going through the pages and forming the letters with a dry-erase pen. She would carefully trace each letter and then did a great job writing them by herself. I was impressed with how many different aspects of writing the book covered. She enjoyed tracing and drawing shapes, as well as numbers. Great for building fine motor skills, numeracy, literacy knowledge, and vocabulary development.

Building Mathematicians

The Skill Builders! Kindergarten Math Set comes with a solid selection of manipulatives and learning materials. The set includes two colors of MathLink® Cubes, two-sided counters, ten frames, a cardboard 100 board, paper worksheets, two foam dice, a spinner, and a selection of challenge cards using the materials included in the set.

We decided to use the 100 board for a fun board game. We took turns to roll the two foam dice, adding up the numbers and moving our counter that many spaces forward. It was a race to get to the end of the board, and both my kids loved the simplicity and excitement of this game. It was good for addition and counting skills and helping younger children navigate the tricky concepts of taking turns and winning/losing.

When my son was in Kindergarten and First Grade, ten frames were a big part of his learning. He enjoyed using the two-sided counters and challenge cards to complete addition problems on the ten frames provided. A good way to extend this activity would be to provide a pencil and paper so that your Kindergartener can write out the sum and answer, which will help with number formation.

Our final activity was to use the link cubes. As I mentioned, both my kids love to build, so they were excited to explore numeracy concepts using the MathLink Cubes. They enjoyed using the challenge cards to build and complete patterns and then making up their patterns for each other to complete. The cubes are perfect for helping to develop those all-important fine motor skills.

I'm looking forward to continuing to explore these sets with both my children. I like how varied the materials and activities are, as well as the fact that you can easily adjust the activity ideas to suit your child's needs.

Writer's Bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind, and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.

I am currently in the fun position of being a Preschool teacher and being Mom to a preschooler. It is honestly such a magical stage of childhood, and I love how much playful learning happens daily. I am always on the lookout for engaging new materials with my daughter and preschool class, so I was excited to test out Learning Resources® Preschool Letters and Numbers Skill Builders! Sets. In the second blog of this mini-series, we will turn our attention to the Numbers Set.

As I mentioned in the first blog, learning for preschoolers should be as hands-on and fun as possible. It is important to capture their engagement and keep those little hands busy. The Skill Builders! Preschool Numbers Set includes durable plastic numbers and shapes, foam color and number dice, colored ocean counters, number and picture cards, and a selection of paper activity sheets. As with all Learning Resources products, there is also a brilliant activity guide full of enriching activity ideas for your preschooler.

I let my four-year-old pick out the materials she liked the look off, and then we set up a little number tracing and matching activity. She chose one number card at a time and then traced the number with her finger after saying it aloud. She had to find the correct plastic number and place it next to the number card. The final step was to flip over the number card to see the objects and count them. So many excellent numeracy and literacy skills were at work here!

Next, up my preschooler decided that she wanted to explore the shape pieces. We placed the shape cards on one side of the table and the plastic shapes on the other. She chose a plastic shape, and I asked her to name it if she could. She then tried to find the matching shape card, telling me what the picture was of on the shape card. We worked together to figure out the names of some of the more difficult shapes, and we also counted how many sides the shapes had. A really fun extension of this activity was when my daughter announced that she wanted us to go on a shape hunt around the house. We challenged ourselves to find two examples of each plastic shape in our home for each plastic shape. It was lots of fun!

We finished our number session with a game of 'ocean counter collections' (at least that's what my four-year-old called it?!?). We took turns to roll the foam color dice, and then we had to pick out an ocean counter of that color. We kept taking it in turns, building our ocean collection and counting as we went. If your child wanted to make the game more challenging, you could add the foam number dice for some number recognition and vocabulary.

There are plenty more ways you can play with this set. My preschooler particularly enjoyed the large plastic numbers and making games using foam dice and ocean counters. The vibrant colors are such a fun addition!

Writer's Bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind, and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.

Can you use MathLink® cubes to make a holiday tree and present? How many cubes do you need to make each shape?

Print the Activity!