Find the games for your kid's age.

• Number sense, not memorized sums, predicts later math.
• The last number you count is how many there are (Gelman & Gallistel).
• Seeing amounts at a glance is an early math superpower.

• Tap and count real things, out loud.
• Snap number bonds together with blocks.
• Quick how-many flashes to beat your own eye.

Quietly the most addictive one.

• Working memory is the workspace behind reading and math.
• It grows steadily across ages 3 to 6 with the right practice.
• Short, playful, just past comfortable is how memory sticks.

• Flip and match hidden pairs.
• Remember where the star was hiding.
• Spot what changed, then repeat the sequence back.

Fair warning: kids beat grown-ups at this.

• Patterning in preschool predicts later math (Rittle-Johnson).
• Finding a rule is the first form of real reasoning.
• It grows from what repeats to what changes, and why.

• Finish the red-blue-red-blue.
• Spot the one that does not belong.
• Fix a broken pattern, then crack the secret rule.

The “I got it” face is the whole point.

• Early block skill predicts math and spatial ability years on (Verdine, Newcombe).
• Spatial skill is trainable, not a fixed gift.
• Words like edge and between power the thinking.

• Copy the tower from a picture.
• Turn and fit the pieces.
• Find the missing block, then build it backwards.

Knocking the tower down counts as winning.

• Vocabulary is the half of reading that decoding cannot reach.
• Words grow through rich talk, not flashcards.
• Depth means knowing what a word is like, not just what it means.

• Name the picture in real, juicy words.
• Sort words into families and match opposites.
• Catch the joke that turns on two meanings.

Tiny humans, enormous words.

• Self-control predicts outcomes as strongly as IQ (Moffitt).
• Sorting by a rule, then a new rule, trains it (Zelazo).
• All of it is trainable in early childhood (Diamond).

• Sort by color, then suddenly by shape.
• Catch yourself before the obvious wrong answer.
• Find a second way to group the same things.

The rule flips and they gasp every time.

• Attention underpins almost all early learning.
• Processing speed frees a child to think while they work.
• We build speed on top of accuracy, never instead of it.

• Spot the one duck on a calm page.
• Find them all before the gentle timer.
• Hunt the difference, then beat your own best time.

Eagle eyes, engaged.

• Hearing the sounds in words is the best early reading predictor.
• It is an ear skill, not a print skill.
• Rhyme and blending come before any letter.

• Match the words that rhyme.
• Clap the beats in a name.
• Blend c-a-t into cat, then swap a sound for a new word.

Expect silly rhymes at the dinner table.

• Oral story skill predicts later reading comprehension.
• Sequencing, and why, come before letters.
• A good question and time to answer it is the whole method.

• Put the picture story in order.
• Guess what happens next.
• Spot how a character feels, then tell it back your way.

They always direct their own ending.

• Naming a feeling calms the brain's alarm (affect labeling, Lieberman).
• Self-regulation predicts wellbeing and friendships (Diamond, Moffitt).
• Kids borrow a calm grown-up's nervous system first.

• Name the feeling on a calm face.
• Take three dragon breaths together.
• Catch a big feeling rising, and find the way back to calm.

A game that helps the meltdown pass.

• Reading and spelling are one skill (Ehri, 2000).
• Writing the sounds you hear predicts later reading.
• Segmenting a word into sounds is the key pre-reading move.

• Hear a word, then build it.
• Snap a letter for each sound, SATPIN first.
• Stretch and check the spelling against the sounds.

Their first “I wrote it myself.”

• A number is made of parts: five is four and one.
• Kids grow count-all → count-on → recall (Baroody).
• Number bonds and ten-frames make small sums visible.

• Push two groups of blocks together.
• Count on from the bigger number.
• Snap bonds to ten, then the first sums.

Quietly turns two dice into math.

• Geometry grows in levels: look, then parts, then why (van Hiele).
• Spatial skill predicts STEM and is trainable (Verdine).
• Composing and folding make shape properties concrete.

• Sort shapes by their properties.
• Build a picture from tangram pieces.
• Fold it in half to find symmetry.

Tangrams are secretly addictive.

• Writing is transcription + ideas, held in working memory (Berninger).
• Teaching sentence conventions helps beginners (IES, 2012).
• Easy spelling frees the mind to compose.

• Build a sentence from words.
• Add the capital and the period.
• Mind the spaces, then read it back.

One sentence a day, and they are a writer.

• Tens are the hidden structure of every number (NRC).
• Bundling into tens beats rote counting.
• Place value is the base of all later arithmetic.

• Count to a hundred, then by tens.
• Bundle ones into tens.
• Read a two-digit number as tens and ones.

Counting a giant pile, on purpose.

• Sequence and duration come before the clock (Friedman).
• Reading a clock joins number sense to daily life.
• Knowing what comes next is genuinely calming.

• Order the day, first to last.
• Learn o'clock and half past.
• Set the hands to match the time.

Fixes the “is it snack yet?” loop.