Creating Counting Cards

We have been focusing a lot on early math skills.  It is important to be counting many different times through out the day so we count stuffed animals and whatever motivates.   I made these cards to add a little variety.

I placed stickers on a paper, drew a circle for the milk cap and laminated it.  

 Using a Sharpie I wrote numbers on milk caps.

  Adeline then places the correct number to the card.

Counting and Quantities for Preschoolers

 We have been working on counting and learning quantities.  Here are some of the activities we have been doing.

1.  Matching milkcaps to circles on filefolders

2.  Spelling numbers - I found these wonderful templates at Confessions of a homeschooler.  I use our foam magnetic letter along with this activity. 

3.  Counting Strip -  OK, I know this looks a bit ragged and it is.  I started with a sentence strip and every week or so I add another.  We count through these number every day. 

4.  Counting animals -  I lay out some of our beany babies and Adeline counts them.

5.  Making Marks -  I had some left over laminated pieces so I write a number, and Adeline makes that many marks with her dry erase pen.

6.  Magna Doodle Counting-  I write a number on our magna doodle and Adeline uses a refrigerator magnet to count out the correct quantity,

7.  Counting Bears -  Again I found these templates at Confessions of a homeschooler

8.  Fine Motor Counting -  Counting beans while we drop them into a bottle.

 

Counting Flaps

We have been working hard around here with our counting and number quantities.  Using some file folders that I cut down, I made some counting flaps.  This flap is just to ten but it can be added onto.  There are five flaps per folder and I taped them together with duck tape on the back.  The quantity is on the outside and the number underneath.  You could write the word on the outside and the number underneath.  There are many possibilities.

Grabbing the flap and lifting it involves some fine motor skills as well.  If you child is young you could even uses pictures and do a peek a boo game just to work their fine motor skills.

Counting Sticks

I have been working hard on teaching Adeline her numbers.  I have used flashcards to teach her many of them, now we are focusing on order and quantity.  So I am keeping it simple and having her just put 1-5 in order.

I had a bag full of cardboard tubes so I made some counting tubes to work on today.  This kind of turned into a fine activity as well.

Using tinker toys my goal was to practice putting the tubes in order.  That did not quite happen because Adeline just enjoyed putting the tubes on the tinker toys, but that was also a good hand eye activity.   Later, she just wanted to count the tinker toys so I guess that worked too.  We will pull the tubes out again another day.

 In the end, Adeline made them "crash".

Adeline counting the tinker toy tude stands.  

Beginning to Count

Adeline is starting to count.  We find her all over the house saying  "one, two, three, five".  She is getting there.  I had a large collection of ice cream lids so I made them into number trays.  If you have smaller ones that would work too.   I have enjoyed using this because they cannot be destroyed.

Sometimes we just lay them out 1 to 10.  Sometimes I use them like flashcards.

Now we are counting objects to add to the trays.  I am still doing this hand over hand with Adeline and just to three.

If you don't have lids this activity could be done on small trays of even paper.

Milk Cap Counting

We have been working on numbers lately.  Honestly, Adeline was not very interested in this activity but I thought it was great.  She was more interested in reading her books today.  She graciously gave me a few minutes of her time to count to five but she then said "all done" and left.  So here is what we have.

I used a file folder to create my number cards and milk caps for the counters.  I cut the folders on the fold and wrote a number with the correct amount of circles to indicate the place for the milk caps.

Adeline then placed the correct amount of lids onto the cards.  I wanted to do this up to 10 but I guess we where "all done" at 5.