The holiday season is a delight for preschoolers. They look forward to learning new things every day and are excited about the impending arrival of Santa. Below is a list of "Christmas Math" ideas to enjoy.

1. Santa's Sorting- Assign your elf the job of sorting Santa's goodies into categories. If you want to use candy you can have your child separate gumdrops by color. Blocks can be grouped by size, as well as small toys. Have your child count the number of items in each pile and estimate what holiday box or stocking they might or might not fit into. Test it out together!

2. Create "Reindeer Food"- Have your child assemble mini baggies of "Reindeer Food" using several types of cereals. Cheerios, Kix, Apple Jacks and Cinnamon Toast Crunch are all easy to manipulate. Assign your child specific amounts in a recipe format that they need to count out. For example:
Dancer is a big fan of oats in her food. Please create a mix using 16 Cheerios, 12 Kix, 5 Cinnamon Toast Crunch and 3 Apple Jacks.
Let your child count each out, and write the numbers on paper too. You can even count out a total and subtract a few that you accidently eat (wink wink!) for additional fun. Add chocolate chips, MnM's or even dried fruit to make your mix more creative. Maybe Prancer prefers sweets and Blitzen likes salty food!

3. Present Hunt- Make a present template on construction paper. Cut out 20 "gifts" of varied colors and put a number on 10, and that same set of numbers on the other ten, written in words. For example, "2" on one gift, the match is "two" on another gift. Do not make them the same color or that will be just too easy! Hide the gifts around the house, asking your child to find the matches. You can even lightly tape them to areas in the house. When your child returns the set correctly ask him or her to say the number aloud as well.