Teaching about Numbers and Counting 2

Teaching about Numbers and Counting 2

Here are some ways that you can help children learn to recognize and write numbers:

• When they play with number puzzles, encourage them to say the numbers as they put the pieces in the puzzles.

• Have them include numbers in the pictures they draw and in the words and stories they write. For example, “What’s the street number for your house that you drew?” “Wow, you wrote a long story. Can you number all of those pages?”

• Read and discuss number and counting books, pointing and counting the objects on each page.

• Encourage the children to make their own counting picture books by cutting and pasting pictures of objects on pieces of paper or by using stickers. The children can count the objects and write the number of the total on each page.

• Keep pencils, crayons, and paper around the room so that the children can make lists.

In addition to learning about counting and writing numbers, young children need experiences that will help them learn words and ideas that are particularly important to their future success in arithmetic and mathematics.

You can help children by:

• Using words such as same, different, more than, less than, and one more as you compare groups of objects.

• Naming the first, second, third, fourth, and last items when you talk about things in a line or a series. For example, when cooking ask the children, “What do you think the first ingredient will be? OK, what is the second thing we should add to the bowl?”

• Using location words: in back of, beside, next to, between.

• Teaching them to learn to recognize, name, and draw different shapes, and to combine some shapes to make new or bigger shapes.

• Making comparisons between objects: taller than, smaller than.

• Measuring things first with measures such as string or strips of paper and then with measures such as rulers, scales, and measuring cups. Discuss why we need to measure things.

• Arranging groups of objects according to size—from largest to smallest.

• Teaching them to copy patterns and to predict what will come next.

• Matching objects that are alike.

• Describing similarities and differences among objects.

• Sorting objects into groups by a given feature (the same colour, the same shape) or by class (animals, cars, buildings). Discuss why the groups of objects are the same.

 

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