The beginning of the college semester has kept me extra busy for a couple weeks, but I’m back. And I have a game this time that can be adapted for a very wide variety of ages – a scavenger hunt!

One way to help your child to internalize mathematical thinking is to open their eyes to the quantities around them. As parents, we help provide our children ways to see the world from an early age. We name objects, identify colors, describe what we’re doing. A child doesn’t necessarily see the color blue on their own – they see blue because adults point blue out to them (listen to this totally fascinating Radiolab podcast about the color blue). We point out big and little, noisy and quiet, dark and bright – we help show them which characteristics are worth noticing.

Quantity is also a characteristic. So many things in our world come in quantities, but since kids don’t tune in naturally to the characteristic “how many,” adults can help by pointing it out. I’m not talking about learning to count – I’m talking about learning to see quantity as an attribute, something we can recognize, describe, and use to characterize parts of our world, just like color. Just as Monkey’s t-shirt and the playground equipment in the picture below, although entirely different in other ways, share the attribute “gray,” the flower petals and the dots on the dice below the photograph share the attribute “five.”

A scavenger hunt for quantities can help your child become accustomed to seeing quantity as an attribute. There are all sorts of ways to do a quantity scavenger hunt. Here are three:

1. Open Scavenge: Pick a room in the house and work together to find as many quantities as possible. You might choose the kitchen and find that there are two salt/pepper shakers, six chairs around the table, four drawers beneath the counter, three slats on the back of the chair, two towels on the front of the oven, and so on and so on. This can be played one-on-one with a single child or cooperatively with two or more children. Some children may enjoy labeling quantities with sticky notes or a label maker.
2. Number Challenge: Give your child (or children) a paper labeled with the numbers 1-12, or a set of sticky notes labeled 1-12. Then roam throughout the house and try to find a quantity for every number. With multiple players, everyone can have their own set, the rule being that no two people can choose the same set of objects for their number. Because some numbers will be much harder than others (how many things come in sets of 11?*), you may wish to eliminate hard numbers, set a time limit, or simply play for fun with the expectation that you might not find everything.
3. Quantity Match: Can be played with a parent and child, or with two children. Have one player find a quantity (four shelves, for example). The other player then has to find something different, but with the same quantity (four pillows on the couch!). Then switch places. Repeating quantities is okay (and even repeating sets of objects for very young children).

Again, this is really easy to adapt, and it’s easy to involve multiple members of the family – including younger and older children. Have fun with it!

And as a side note, it’s never to early to start helping your child notice quantity. With very young children, you can point out any quantity but especially two – there are all sorts of twos in a baby or toddler’s life! Two ears, two hands, two feet… This morning as I was changing 16-month-old Monkey out of his pajamas, I counted “one…” as I pulled one foot out of the footie, and as I reached for his second foot he responded with, “dooh!” A few more repetitions convinced me that it wasn’t just coincidence – he’s picked up on the “one…two!” count he’s been hearing from me, and I wasn’t even really thinking about it. Way to make your math mama proud, Monkey!

* Look! 11 slats on the shoe rack!