How to Teach Kids the Difference Between More & Less
Basic skills are the building blocks all children need to prepare for both formalized education and for living in the real world. Learning basic concepts, such as "more and less," "bigger and smaller" and "taller and shorter," helps prepare children for understanding more complex concepts. It's best to start teaching children about the concept of "more and less" at a very young age.
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Instructions
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Start talking in terms of more and less whenever you are presenting groups of objects to the child. For example, during mealtime use grapes or cookies as a way to ask a child to distinguish and decide between more and less. Offer the child two cookies in one hand and four in the other. Hold out the hand with two cookies and ask if the child wants the hand with less cookies or the hand with more cookies. Make the child point to the appropriate hand. Repeat this process with other food items that can be represented in terms of more and less.
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Ask children at the end of a favorite television show if they want to watch more television. Explain that more means the child can watch one extra show. You can use this same method to teach the concept of more with music, movies and play time. To teach the concept of less, give the child a choice between shows with one show being longer than the other. Ask the child to choose between the show with more time and the show with less time.
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Illustrate the concept of more and less through drawing. Draw a picture with a lot of dots on one sheet of paper, then draw a second picture with far fewer dots. Ask the child to point to the picture with less. Have the child draw you two pictures. Ask the child to draw a specific shape or object and instruct him to make one picture with more items and one picture with less. Reinforce the concept by holding a few crayons in one hand and more in the other; then ask the child to choose the hand with the most crayons.
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Play games to reinforce the concept. Put 10 red and 10 blue marbles into a paper bag. Shake up the bag and have the child grab a handful of marbles. Count the number of blue marbles pulled out and the number of red. Discuss whether the child has more or less blue marbles than red. Other games to help teach more and less include card games such as Go Fish, where the winner is determined by having more cards while the loser has less cards.
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Tips & Warnings
Use the terms more and less while running errands, walking through the house or whenever possible. Ask children to point out objects representing more and less. For example, while driving ask the child to point to a lawn with more trees compared to the others, or a parking lot with less cars compared to an adjacent lot.
Know that all children learn at individualized paces and you may need to work harder at basic concepts with some children than others.
References
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