Preschool Math Worksheets

Since there is no set preschool curriculum, at least in the eyes of the National Curriculum Initiative, we improvised a little. We worked with several past national and every state drafts of preschool curriculum that we could get my hands on. All the work here is aligned to the curriculum as precursory skills for achieving kindergarten standards. We also have Preschool Math Posters for your class walls. There have been over a dozen studies recently published that tout the evidence that is available that shows that preschool education has a huge benefit on kids and society as a whole. At first the data was just based on observations of those that service children at this age and routinely track their abilities. Data driven studies were recently published that indicate that students that attend a preschool program are much more likely to complete high school, attend college, and drastically less likely to adopt a life of crime.

Precursory Skills For Counting

• Counting Objects 1-5 (K.CC.A.1) - Learning your numbers is the first skill we need and then we can move on to simple counts.
• Starting to Count (K.CC.A.1) - We expand our number vocabulary here.
• 1-10 Connect-the-Dot Problems (K.CC.A.2) - Seems like just a fun activity, but it helps sequence and counting skills progress.
• Days of the Week (K.CC.A.2) - Students that have these down before school are just a bit ahead.
• Writing Numbers 1-9 (K.CC.A.3) - Who said handwriting was a dead artform?
• Learning to Subtract (K.OA.A.3) - We start with the concept of taking away and moving from there.
• Color 10 Objects in a Set- K.CC.B.4a) - There are more than ten in the sets.
• Counting through Drawing- K.CC.B.4b) - This is a powerful technique.
• Color Matching- K.G.B.5) - Match not only the same shade of color, but the names of the colors.
• 1 to Many Group Matching (K.CC.B.5) - This is helpful for observation skills and leads us to comparisons.
• Identifying Groups of 6 to 10 Numbers (K.CC.B.5) - This is not as easy to teach as you would think.
• Working With Tallies (K.CC.B.5) - Actively tally marks help us keep track of a lot of different things.
• Counting Money (K.CC.B.5) - We work on both coins and bills.
• Finding Less in Sets (K.CC.C.6) - What is the smaller part of this all?
• Comparing 2 Objects (K.CC.C.6) - Not only by size, but also characteristics come into play here.

Precursory Skills to Mathematical Operations

• Adding by 1 Additional Unit (K.OA.A.1) - What do you get after you throw one more on the pile?

Precursory Skills to Measurement

• Halves; Pre-Symmetry (K.MD.A.1) - Students learn not only how to determine half of something, but how to draw it too.
• Long and Short (K.MD.A.1) - Get more familiar with the measurement of length.
• Find the Biggest Object (K.MD.A.2) - Students learn to compare relative size.
• How Tall Is It? (K.MD.A.2) - We progress toward measuring height.
• Spot All the Differences (K.MD.A.2) - Compare and contrast things visually.
• More or Less Items and Objects (K.MD.A.2) - We progress towards the concepts of addition and subtraction.
• Make Them the Same (K.MD.B.3) - What needs to change to make two things the same?
• Matching Items and Numbers (K.MD.B.3) - Reinforce the concepts of same and number names.
• Same and Different (K.MD.A.3) - If they only knew what geometry has in store for them as they get older.
• Match the Same Number of Different Objects (K.MD.A.3) - The first time we truly work on comparing by observation.
• Recognizing the Same Size (K.MD.A.3) - Matching size is not as simple as it sounds.
• Matching Numbers and Groups of Objects (K.MD.B.3) - This is a more advanced observation skill.
• Matching Pairs (K.MD.B.3) - Which two are alike?

Precursory Skills to Geometry

• One to One Relationships (Geometry) - This is a step towards the concept of cardinal numbers.
• In Front and Behind (K.G.A.1) - A look at relative position between two objects.
• Inside, Outside and in Between (K.G.A.1) - This really helps us better communicate a position.
• Above and Below (K.G.A.1) - They can sometimes confuse this with front and behind at first.
• Which is Smaller? (K.MD.A.2) - Another relative size section.
• Drawing and Tracing Geometric Shapes (K.G.A.3) - The goal here is to lead us towards knowing the names of what we are drawing.
• Finding Shapes and Following Directions (K.G.A.3) - Following and understanding directions are paramount skills for preschoolers.
• Sorting Shapes (K.G.B.5) - We learn about the characteristics of basic geometric shapes.
• Simple Patterns (K.G.B.4) - The goal is to understand the concept of patterns and sequence.
• Patterns Through Colors (K.G.B.4) - We move from numbers to visuals.
• Basic Patterns with Missing Piece (K.G.B.4) - The concept of an unknown is introduced to students.
• Following Sentence-Based Directions (K.G.B.5) - Students should have a basic reading sense to be able to handle these.

What Math Skills Do Students Learn in Preschool?

The math curriculum of early childhood education is designed to provide a firm foundation that children need for preschool and beyond. The focus of mathematical skills should be on building and reinforcing basic skills that will later help in building advanced skills.

The preschool sets the foundation for future mathematical skills. Here are the mathematical skills that children are commonly taught in preschool.

Counting - Preschool children start their mathematical experience by learning numbers. They begin counting different items to understand one-to-one correspondence better. They will also learn to compare sets of different objects with varying numbers of items. In addition, the use of appropriate language to describe the sets of items and writing the numerals are also taught.

Addition and Subtraction - Preschool is the earliest stage of learning addition and subtraction the focus at this level is on making the students grasp the basic concept of addition and subtraction. Student s will learn ‘putting together' as addition and ‘taking from or apart' as the concept of subtraction. At this level, students aren't asked to write the equations or sums for solving the problem; they only need to observe the problem.

Measurement and data - As they start their mathematical experiment, the young children will start comparing things around them. This is where the concept of measurement and data is utilized. At preschool level, students will learn to classify different objects, sort them into different classes, and form different groups of similar objects.