📖 Preschool Math by Robert A. Williams and Joy Lubawy. Here is a nearly 300-page book packed with Montessori-inspired activities for teaching early math concepts to preschoolers. Though developed for a classroom setting, most of the activities can be adapted for one or two children. "Preschool Math encourages children's thoughtful considerations, theory development, and logical exploration. It discourages interrogation or forcing a yes or no answer. Teachers are encouraged to observe children's play when introducing math concepts, or environment in ways that are appropriate at that time and for those children. This approach helps children learn math concepts as they are ready for them." – Preschool

📖 Preschool Math at Home by Kate Snow. Written by a homeschooler and veteran math educator, Preschool Math at Home is filled with easy-to-implement activities that you can do with your young child. The goal of the book is to convey “a thorough understanding of the the numbers up to ten, including: counting, comparing and ordering numbers, recognizing written numerals, and beginning adding and subtraction.” – Preschool

📖 Anno's Math Games by Mitsumasa Anno. This gentle, old-fashioned book offers a lovely picture-based introduction to the basic preschool math concepts of comparison, classification, addition and subtraction, measurement, and ordinal numbers. Also see Anno's Math Games II, Math Games III, and Anno's Hat Tricks. – Preschool • Elementary

🖐️ Animal Counters. Dedicated counters, like many preschool learning accessories, are fun but not mandatory. Use these assorted animal counters—or legos, or blocks, or toy cars, if you'd prefer—as a tool to practice counting, sorting, adding, and subtracting. – Preschool • Elementary

📖 Anno's Counting Book by Mitsumaso Anno. “A counting book depicting the growth in a village and surrounding countryside during twelve months.” – Preschool • Elementary

📖 Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews. “What can you do with ten black dots? One dot can make a sun, two dots can make the eyes of a fox, and three dots can make a snowman's face.” – Preschool • Elementary

📖 Chicka Chicka 123 by Bill Martin, Jr. “One hundred and one numbers climb the apple tree in this bright, rollicking, joyous book for young children.” – Preschool • Elementary

📖 Count the Monkeys by Mac Barnett. “Hey kids! Time to count the monkeys! Kids will giggle as they count all the animals that have frightened the monkeys off the pages.” – Preschool • Elementary

📖 One Big Pair of Underwear by Laura Gehl. “What’s one thing that two bears, three yaks, four goats, and six cats have in common? They hate to share.” – Preschool • Elementary

📖 Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh. “A hungry snake finds ten little mice and counts them into a jar for dinner. One, two, three . . . but the mice are clever as well as 'little, warm, and tasty,' and they soon outwit the snake and 'uncount' themselves—ten, nine, eight . . .” – Preschool • Elementary

📖 One Was Johnny by Maurice Sendak. “One was Johnny—but that's not all, count all the others who came to call.” – Preschool • Elementary

🖐️ Pattern Cards and Beads. Pattern cards and beads allow young kids to practice recognizing and recreating simple patterns. Beads and string are always fun, but you don't need to purchase a set like this in order to teach pattern awareness—you could just as easily use objects you already have around the house—blocks, legos, toy cars, carrots and peas, stickers, etc. – Preschool • Elementary

📖 Triangle and other books in the Shape Trilogy by Mac Barnett. These three simple yet clever picture books deserve to be enjoyed in their own right, but they also make a great accompaniment to a first study of shapes. Start with Triangle, then read Square and Circle. – Preschool • Elementary

📖 Circle, Square, Moose by Kelly Bingham. The narrator is trying to teach kids about the different shapes, but a very enthusiastic Moose keeps interrupting. When Zebra steps in to help out, the situation only gets worse. This is a funny little book—great for the preschool/ kindergarten crowd. – Preschool • Elementary

📖 The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns. In this silly story, a very fickle triangle visits the shapeshifter again and again to add just one more side. After experiencing life as a variety of different polygons, it finally decides it was happiest as a triangle and returns to its original form. This is a nice book to include in a first study of shapes. – Preschool • Elementary

📖 Pattern Fish by Trudy Harris. Perfect for preschoolers and kindergartners, this simple picture book encourages readers to find the regularly repeating patterns decorating the pages. The end material talks a little bit more about patterns. Also see Harris’s Pattern Bugs. – Preschool • Elementary