With Veronika a little under the weather, we were looking for low-key activities that would keep her engaged without much physical effort. Here are two fun ways to play with early toddler math concepts: comparing two or more things; and sorting things according to some characteristic.

First, we played a classic game of Large and Small. I gave her a set of objects from around the house, with one item big and one smaller, including: spoons, crayons, socks, and toy bunnies.

For each, she was always able to select which was bigger…

and which was smaller, with no problem.

Sometimes I mixed it up and used words like “longer” or “shorter”, to throw her a curve ball! This made her pause and think a bit longer before picking which item fit the bill.

You can then encourage your child to sort the objects into two piles, with all the big items to one side and the small items to the other. This led us right into the next game: Sticker Sorting!

This time, I taped up sheets of colored construction paper to the wall that matched a set of dot label stickers. She simply had to decide where each sticker should go.

Sometimes she wanted to cover a piece of paper with every dot in that color, as for favorites like red and purple.

Other colors she was content to put only one or two stickers.

But whether a few stickers or lots, she sorted them correctly by color each time.