by Melissa Jaramilllo and Julie Snyder
This activity helps your child practice counting skills, measuring, estimation, and mastering the concepts of giant and tiny.
Pick a landmark (tree in your yard, couch in your living room). Next, pick a distance to stand away from your choice. Now, together count how many steps it will take to get to the landmark. Next, go back to your starting point and have your child guess how many "giant" steps you could make it in. What about baby steps?
Repeat this activity both indoors and out. Continue to teach your child how to estimate the varying length of his steps. You may want to point out the vast difference in "your" giant step versus his.
You can also use this as an opportunity to measure exactly how far your child's stride is. For older children, try measuring the stride of your child and the distance from your starting point to the landmark chosen. See how accurately you can estimate the number of normal steps it will take!
Extra activity: Introduce the concept of scale and map the distance from the porch to the tree or the gate. Or allow your child to create a pirate map, made to scale, with a treat at the "x."
Julie Snyder is a mom of six, interested in kids, pregnancy, birth, people and lives in the outlying Seattle area. Melissa Jaramillo is mom to many. She's passionate about building, encouraging, and strengthening families on this adventure known as parenthood!
Copyright © Melissa Jaramillo and Julie Snyder. Permission to republish granted to Pregnancy.org, LLC.