Does anyone know of good resources for beginning math for toddlers?

I'm am not aware of formal math curriculum for toddlers.  In our house, we just use what is in front of them.  At the table, we can sort our fruit loops by color and count them.  If I eat a fruit loop, how many do we have left?

If we're playing with blocks, we try to build a tower with 9 blocks.  Once we have 6 blocks, we can stop and figure out how many more blocks we need.

You can do toddler math everywhere you go - counting red cars, counting groceries in the basket, counting the people in line at the post office.

I'm sure there are more formal ways to do it, we just have had good success with using our everyday tasks.

My just turned 2 years old twin daughter is able to dial the phone if I tell her what numbers to push one at a time ( from across the room), and she is able to also dial numbers in sequence- when I give her two at a time, or give her a sheet of paper with the numbers on it. I thought I might need something a little more aggressive than counting blocks and dialing the phone??? She has an excellant memory for math, and I wanted to be able to help her develop it. Thus far we had not done much of anything other than counting fingers and toes. Neither me or my husband were aware she could dial a phone, or recognized series of numbers by sight.

Has she been watching PBS?  ;-)  That's how my son learned at an early age.  That, and us using teachable moments from birth - and reading to him from birth.

You may have a gifted child on your hands ;-).  I would look for some fun preschool workbooks.  The dollar stores have some that you could try.  Also get her counting/shape/color books from the library.  You can work on matching number words to the actual numbers.

There are a lot of preschool reading websites, but off the top of my head I don't know of any math ones...just use math in our daily life.  :-)

JC

Count on Math by Pamela Schiller

Family Math for Young Children by Jean Stenmark

Thanks Matthew, I will check out both of those books.

I don't doubt she is gifted. Both my husband and I were in the gifted program. But, neither of our "gifts" were adequately used. I would like to cultivate my children's gifts- whatever they are- so that perhaps they could use them later in life if they wished.

You know, they haven't watched PBS. I have been limiting t.v. viewing since all the info says its not healthy for young minds to try and process the information. Theys till get too much- about one hour a day (sighs, its the only way I can make breakfast and dinner). BUT, they do watch Mickey Mouse because its high contrast colors and very slow movement. Now that the youngest set of twins are 1 years old, perhaps we could start watching PBS.

What about those books (there's one with raisins and one with M and Ms that I know of) where you use the raisin or whatever as your  math manipulative for counting or adding or whatever).  Also the Before Five in a Row book has suggestions for integrating math with whatever picture book you read.  For example if you read "Madeline" when it says there were "4 girls in 3 straight lines" in the story, you could discuss some other formations that 12 girls could walk in, etc.  Or what about "Pre Math It," a program that uses dominoes to teach math concepts.  I also like stuff from Critical Thinking Press, but I havent personally used it for that age group.  I think there is a book called Math Games by Peggy Kaye.  Good luck and Have FUN!