grow & thrive for families
Numeracy skills  0–5 years
Centre for Community Child Health
Numeracy skills are important skills for your child,
they’re ones that they will use for many situations
throughout their lives.
In the years before school, children’s numeracy skills
come from encouraging instinctive mathematical
thinking and providing opportunities to practice.
Activities like:
• sorting and counting objects such as buttons, blocks,
beads, toy cars and plastic animals
• building with blocks
• cooking, weighing and measuring ingredients
• measuring how heavy or light things are
• looking at how much different containers hold
• using shape sorting boxes and balls
You can also ask your child questions like:
• Does that shape block fit in this hole?
Centre for Community Child Health
The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne
email publications.ccch@rch.org.au
www.rch.org.au/ccch/growthrive
August 2015
May 2014
• How many birds are there in the tree?
• Which way will we go on our walk?
• Is there enough cake for everyone to have a piece?
• What happens when you put another block on the pile?
Environmental numbers
Numbers are all around us – on your front fence, in the mail,
on signs and on numberplates. Use these environmental
numbers and have conversations about numbers to support
your child to develop their early numeracy skills.
The mathematical thinking your child develops in their
earliest years will form the foundation for the more formal
maths learning they’ll do at school, and contribute to their
life skills.
Learn more
You can find out more about things that you and your child
can do to develop early mathematical thinking on the Raising
Children Network: http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/
numeracy_early_years_-_dest.html
ERC 150740