Math is one of the most exciting concepts to teach young children. It’s around us at . . . 

all times in everything we do and super useful for the future as well. Regardless of your child’s age, if they haven’t started to learn about numbers and counting yet, they soon will.
 Toddler age is a great time to begin introducing simple math concepts to your children.
 Counting
 From the time they begin to speak they can learn to count and before that hearing you count is a great beginning step for them. I can remember counting everything in our path when my littles were young. We counted the stairs we walked up and down, we counted the leaves we picked up outside, we counted the birds in the field, we counted the clothes as they went in the washer. Everything we did had a number and before I knew it they were counting along with me. As children start to grasp the concept of rote counting (repeating the numbers one after the other), you can begin to introduce them to actual one to one correspondence (counting objects with meaning).
 One to one correspondence 
 This concept is when children are able to count objects and say their number as they count. For instance, they are counting a group of cars and naming a number as they touch each car. There are so many ways to work on this with your little ones. When starting to teach them this concept, give them small groups of objects to count. Start with parts of their snack (five grapes, three goldfish, etc.). This concept can take months and months to learn and excel at. Children will develop this skill at their own rate, as long as you allow opportunities for them to practice the skills it’ll come.
 Patterns
 Patterns are all around us. The stripes on their shirt, the fruit on their fruit kabobs, the bathroom tiles, and in so many other places. When they’re little we start pointing them out around us and as they get older they can make their own patterns. They can paint patterns on paper, they can make colour patterns with bingo chips, or little animals, blocks, legos, anything. With the objects you can do big and little patterns, you can make patterns with different stickers, the ideas are endless. The important thing to remind them of is that a pattern repeats itself. Before you know it, they’ll be pointing patterns out all around them. 
Measurement
 Measurement is one of my favorite concepts to teach young children. Children love measuring things around them. Measuring can be done with rulers or measuring tapes etc., but it can also be done as a comparison activity. At a young age having children figure out which object is longer is a great beginning step. You can measure each other and classify it from longest – shortest. Heaviest to lightest is another easy one to do during play with your little ones. Another great way to reinforce measurement is through baking and cooking. Measuring out ingredients is a terrific way to start teaching these early math concepts.
 There are so many common games we play with our kids that are great for math concepts – most of the time we aren’t even thinking math when we play them. Card games; war, skipbo, 7 up, go fish, dominoes, games with dice, games where you have to move your person (trouble, candy land and countless more). We are practicing math concepts without ever realizing it. We are already on the road to helping our kids adopt a positive attitude towards math.
by Shelley Heaphy