I am so glad I packed the Hape wooden numbers for our holiday. I just knew that A’s interest in numbers would keep growing. I was at a discount store and spotting packets of cats. They came in a pack of 6 so I grabbed three knowing I would have enough for A to use them as counters up to 5. I introduced the toy cats to A just after we were playing with our real cats. ‘I love these! These are my favourite animals!’ I started with the number 1 and then we worked out way down the mat; going back to check if A had enough cats for each number. After this I also added the zero and showed him how there were no cats beside zero because it means ‘none’ or ‘nothing’. Such a hard concept to understand!
I think I’ll go back and get some more packets of cats so he can keep counting up to 10.
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I remembered that I had kept some wooden Christmas craft buttons and shapes, so I got them out to see if I could use them as counters. There was enough to create counters from 1 to 5, and A was interested in counting them with me. I got the Montessori numbers and counters puzzle down off the shelf so that we could also put numbers to our counters. Basically I showed A a number and said, ‘This is the number 2, can you find the collection that has 2 in it?’ I then put the Christmas counters to the side and pulled the counters part of the puzzle out of the box. I repeated the activity, pointing out the number and asking him to find the puzzle that had that many dots. A then grabbed some cars and started using the completed puzzles as car parks or truck pads. 😅 You just got to ‘roll’ with it. I really wish I owned the sandpaper numbers. I want to DIY some basic number tiles instead of buying them but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I do like this puzzle. I could have DIYed them easily, but I like the tactile warmth of the wooden puzzle that a laminated piece of paper doesn’t have. I have removed the parts for 6 through to 10 to make it easier for A. When he can count the dots half of the puzzle, and it actually matches up to the number half it’s pretty satisfying. A was proud of his efforts during this activity. Our shelves needed some rotations! We’ve swapped out the scales and weights for a number puzzle and a stacking game! A really enjoyed the puzzle - an improvement from last time I had it out. I asked A to pick up a number and I told him the name of that numeral. Once he knew what the numeral was, he could then count the animals on the jigsaw before putting the number in place. I think this is also helping with estimating how many items are in a group which has a name but I can’t remember it. The other shelf we swapped over is the miniature tray. We put out the Safari Toob Nativity set. I printed out a picture from this link which was from this YouTube video. We watched the video and A had to find the figurine as it was displayed. We can match up the figurines with the image for a later activity.
I thought I had read my little man right because he has been counting heaps lately. I wasn’t really interested in teaching him the actual numbers just have them out so he can see them and get used to numerals. Even then he wasn’t really interest them. This activity should have been a winner. A loves stickers but he did not want to do this at all. In the end I think he put one sticker on the page and called it done 😆 This Melissa & Doug puzzle was too hard for A to put back together but he really enjoyed taking the numbers out. We also counted some of the pictures underneath. This tray was a winner! I bought the plastic numbers from Riot! And got A to thread them all up. A then played fishing boat in the washing basket - just too cute. The book we had on display was the ‘Montessori Number Work’ by Bobby and June George. A liked runningbhis fingers over the numbers and we did some counting but he go bored pretty quickly.
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AuthorHi, I'm Pamela. A nail crazy lady with green hair. I live in outback Queensland with my toddler and my husband. I love books, writing and crafting. For more info about me go to my 'About' page. Archives
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