The other day I distinctly heard Nicky say “One, six, ten!” before he kicked his ball. I don’t know what happened to “One, two, three!” or if these are just his favourite numbers (could be, since he likes his Ben Ten pants and calls them “Nine, ten!”) but there and then I decided it was high time we did a bit of work on numbers and counting.
There are a lot of Montessori materials for maths. One that I think is particularly useful is the Spindle Box where you count wooden rods and place them in compartments. I think it’s not only good for counting, it’s good for understanding the concept of zero when you feel the empty compartment. I guess what I could do is turn our red rods into number rods by painting them in alternate colours, but I’m not keen to mess with my dad’s work of art.
In the absence of these materials I have always kept a look out at book sales and charity shops for other resources and I’ve come across some lucky finds.
I found some nice ones for him to both trace and count. Nicky really enjoys tracing. I point and he counts. This flashcard set also contains a little window that you open so that the last object is behind the door and you have to open it.
Of course cars are a bit hit so I was lucky to find some of his favourite characters as aids to counting. I got Nicky to stand next to them and walk next to each one “One Lighting! Two Maters!” etc
Lastly I found a good one that matches the number to the object. Since this was the charity shop find there were some numbers missing and I had to draw those ones in. The only problem with this is that he sometimes gets more interested in the pictures than the numbers and we get a bit side tracked with “bags” instead of “two”.
I have also made a point when reading with Nicky to start counting objects in his books, so that we keep the momentum going.
So now I know that even if he likes to throw strange numbers together, that he actually CAN count one to ten if he wants to.
Some other recent posts you may find helpful on this topic are: Jolene’s post on Mathematics and this one on PreK Numbers, Shapes and Colours.
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In other totally unrelated news, but I thought this was super cute, he took all the Stikeez and put them on his “fire truck”. Much fun was had as he made the two sheep and “raffie” (the giraffe) drive and put others in various strategic places.
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If you know of any pregnant moms right now, this is a great countdown calendar – my blog features on month six (educate yourself).
The Spindle box is awesome!
yes it is!
Those counting rods look like fun! We like LeapFrog’s number songs. They make couting so much more fun. 🙂
love these ideas..Aidan LOVES numbers and since neither of his parents are very strong “number people” i intend to encourage it
I’m sure you’ll come up with something crafty!