Numberblocks is a fantastic educational show for teaching Math to Preschoolers and Kindergartners. Better still, nearly all Numberblocks episodes have been made available for homeschoolers to view freely. Read on to find out how to make use of this program for your own students.
Numberblocks is a Superb Educational Show
Hailing from the UK, Numberblocks is a much-beloved show that will take your child on a magnificent journey through the world of Math (or “Maths,” as our UK friends would say). Each number in Numberblocks has a unique appearance and personality, which makes the experience of learning Math friendly and personal. Slowly but surely, children viewing the show are introduced to the numbers “1,” “2,” “3,” “4,” and so on, learning to count along the way.
More advanced concepts, like addition, subtraction, and multiplication are introduced steadily over the course of the episodes. This is always done in clever and fun ways, without really feeling like Math instruction. I greatly approve of the playful approach Numberblocks takes, which allows it to cover genuinely complex mathematical ideas without needing to resort to pen-and-paper tedium.
For an example of just how sophisticated the show can get, I strongly encourage you to view one of the later episodes, which does a great job of illustrating where your child’s mind could be at the culmination of the show.
Numberblocks Introduces Advanced Math Concepts to Young Children
Although the show is clearly targeted for young children and never gets bogged down in rote mathematical minutia, it manages to introduce an impressive collection of mathematical concepts. Many of these topics would not typically be encountered until late elementary school or even middle school. A partial list of the scope of Numberblocks is as follows:
- Counting
- Addition
- Subtraction
- Comparison
- Patterns
- Oddness / Evenness
- Zero
- Shapes
- Factorization
- Multiplication
- Square and Cube Numbers
- Division and Remainders
- Number Properties
- Problem Solving
- Telling Time
- Large Numbers (greater than one hundred)
In addition, the show alludes to concepts like fractions, negative numbers, sets, infinity, and other advanced concepts in ways that are meant to get young minds thinking.
Rest assured: Numberblocks is filled with more than enough riveting information to keep any young mind working for years.
Nearly Every Episode is Available on YouTube for Free …
Numberblocks has been very generous about making episodes available for free viewing. The official Numberblocks YouTube channel features every episode except Counting Sheep (which is not an essential part of the series), so any child can benefit from Numberblocks free of charge.
… But It Isn’t Organized Well
Unfortunately, the Numberblocks YouTube channel is a bit of a mess. The channel currently has more than 1000 videos and 40 playlists, and it isn’t at all clear where someone should start. For example, there is one playlist titled “Level One,” and another titled “RED LEVEL 1.” Meanwhile, there are two different playlists titled “Season 5,” which mostly consist of the same videos, but in entirely different orders.
For reasons like the above, we felt it was necessary to give parents a little more guidance.
Don’t Worry: We Have the Solution!
We’ve created a helpful YouTube playlist that does all the hard work for you. We’ve sorted every episode of Numberblocks into a reasonable viewing order, so you don’t have to!
Using Numberblocks for Your Homeschool Curriculum
Numberblocks is suitable for use in both Pre-K and Kindergarten, and we recommend using it throughout both of these grade levels.
Play 15-20 minutes of our Numberblocks playlist for your child every day, slowly working your way through the playlist. It’s okay to let them watch more each day if they are interested. It is likely that at some point, the playlist will start to feel too difficult for your child, and they may begin to lose interest; at this point, you should start them back at the beginning, and let them rewatch everything they’ve already seen. Only restart if they aren’t having a good time anymore – it’s never a bad thing for children to challenge themselves!
Keep restarting the playlist at the beginning whenever your child starts to feel frustrated with the material. Over time, they should feel comfortable watching episodes deeper into the playlist. If they are bored with the earlier episodes, consider restarting them only part of the way to the beginning of the playlist. The goal is simply to ensure that your child is having fun, while also encountering reasonably challenging ideas.
Expect to restart the playlist numerous times before your child can get through the entire thing comfortably and with comprehension. Keep restarting the playlist until your child is ready to move on to something else.
If your child watches 20 minutes of Numberblocks every weekday, it will take them approximately 6 weeks to get through the entire playlist from beginning to end. Of course, because they will need to restart many times, it could easily take more than a year to be finished. That’s fine, as long as they are finished by the end of Kindergarten. At that point, they will be well prepared for any standard 1st grade Math curriculum.
Do I Need Anything Else for Math?
You might consider buying a simple Kindergarten Math workbook to give your student some experience writing numbers, and to give them an opportunity to demonstrate their new-found math skills.
