Act it Out!

It can be very hard to convince oneself to try things that come unnaturally to them or are hard and it is even harder to keep trying after we mess up. One way to make thinking in a mathematical way more comfortable is to play the role of a character whose job it is to think in these ways.

With infants we cannot expect them to act things out but playing with them in imaginative ways can help them foster their imagination for future play. By age two, children will start to play imaginatively. If they see examples of scientists, doctors, mathematicians, or even just of children doing experiments they may want to act them out. This re-enacting helps children think in mathematical ways for fun which can transfer to other areas of life.