The Joyful Keeper: Tots on a Tuesday {fun ways to count and learn numbers}

Tuesday, 17 June 2014

Tots on a Tuesday {fun ways to count and learn numbers}

I realised, recently, that a couple of my little ones didn't quite have their number recognition sorted. The older child was understanding certain maths concepts, but not able to recognise the number in the sum!

So, I set out to find some fun and interesting ways to tie up number recognition, with counting.

I conventiently viisted The Range, just as I was about to set out doing these activities, and I picked up a few items that would be helpful. These are all things that you could find in other places - not necessarily the identical item, but similar, and still able to function the same way.

So, what were they?

Rainbow pom poms, wooden numbers and clothes pins with hearts on the end!

The heart pegs, I numbered from 1-20, with a Sharpie, on the heart end. There are loads of things you could do with them, but I decided to grab some items I had in the house, and use them to do some counting. I got the tu of "children's" buttons (not my nice ones!), and got them to first put the numbers in order, then to count out the correct number of buttons into each section in the egg carton! They had a lot of fun doing this!

You could easily find similar, small, wooden pegs in a craft store, or even a hardware store! I have found similar ones in Poundland before.

(Keeping it real - this is what happened when Simeon got the buttons!)

Then, we got to using out wooden numbers and our pom poms. Now, when you want to use any item to count to ten, and want to have the exact number of items to do so, it's helpful to know you need 55 items... my pack had 50! Not to self - buy more pom poms!)

I just love rainbow things, so these were a real find! As I say, I *MUST* buy some more! Once again, though, you could use any pom poms, or any other manipulative, like buttons, counters, and such like.

Another activity we did, which I don't have a picture of right now, is having them draw around the wooden numbers, then draw items matching that number - 1 bee, 2 flowers, etc etc. A year ago, Abi wouldn't have enjoyed doing that, but she enjoys drawing much more now. Elijah? He would draw until the cows came home! You could use these numbers for kinesthetic tracing, getting them to trace the number with their finger on the actual number, or inside the shape once they have drawn it. That all reinforces, in their brain, how to form the number.

We did another couple of activities, with some items we already had. First off, we used some printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I think I may have shared them before, or perhaps the alphabet ones?

You can easily find these wooden, geometric shapes, in online stores such as Amazon. I have a set of them. I also have a set of shapes, very similar, in our Spielgaben set (which is something I plan to tell you about very soon!). I have these printed out for 0-20, but we just focussed on the 1-10.