![Picture](/uploads/2/4/2/2/24228422/6502598.jpg?324)
Students entering Pre-Kindergarten should find a well-planned math program awaiting. One that is embedded with hands-on, playful, interactive, every day activities and concrete experiences. To build number concepts and operations teachers can recite fingerplays or rhymes and sing songs about numbers. Teachers can also read counting books. Strategies to help students compare and measure include taking advantage of daily opportunities to talk about comparing and measuring. For example, when children debate about who found the longest stick or who had the biggest leaf. Teachers can encourage students to compare by laying the sicks side by side or placing the leaves one on top of the other. Knowledge of patterns can be reinforced by identifying patterns in daily routines. For example, a teacher may say, "Everyday we follow the same pattern. After breakfast, we have cleanup, then choice time, then story." Another strategy for teaching patterns can be to encourage students to talk about and identify patterns. For example, children can become "pattern detectives" as they describe and represent patterns they identify in the environment. There discoveries can be turned into a class book titled, Patterns Discovered by Our Class.