Tag: numbers

Foam Number Sensory Bag

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Foam Letter Sensory Bag (3)

Veronika is just starting to recognize the written numeral that goes along with each number, and I thought it might be fun to make the experience more hands-on today. After all, toddlers learn so well through sensory play!

I set up a classic sensory bag for this activity, just a large zip-top bag filled with cheap clear hair gel. I kept the layer of gel very light so the emphasis was on the numbers.

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Add the foam numbers and seal the bag, and it’s ready for your child to squish the numbers around. Big brother Travis wanted to see how it felt, too!

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At first I only used numbers 0 through 4, intending to keep things simple. But she spotted the extra numerals (5 through 9) on the floor and wanted a new bag for them. Since she was already tempted to open up the goopy bag, I decided to give her a clean one for this second batch of numbers

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She loved adding 5 through 9 to this second bag, then taking them out and starting over again. This turned out to be even better, because she named each number as she added it! I was surprised to realize she already seems to know 5, 7, and 8 quite well.

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She also discovered that the bags were fun to toss on the floor, especially the one filled with hair gel since it made a satisfying plop when it landed.

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So we had some good sensory play with some good early learning built right in.

Christmas Tree Transfer Activity

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Christmas Tree Transfer (4)

This Christmas-themed activity is great for toddlers to work on number and color recognition and it’s also excellent for fine motor skills. It can easily be adapted as more of a challenge if you have preschoolers, too!

I started by drawing the outline of a Christmas tree on a large piece of green poster board.

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With Veronika at my side, we counted up from 1 to 6 as I wrote the numbers in the bottom of Christmas cupcake liners. She has learned to count by rote up to 11, but this was a great pause to show her the numeral attached to each number as we counted up. We then taped these down at the tips of the tree’s “branches”.

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Next, I filled the cupcake liners with jingle bells! I started with the corresponding number of bells in each cupcake liner (one bell in the liner marked 1, two in the liner marked 2, and so forth), even knowing they wouldn’t stay like that for long. This is a part where you can challenge a preschooler to add the right number of bells to each liner!

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For Veronika, it was more a game of fine motor skills and sensory play. I gave her a plastic spoon (green, naturally) to scoop the jingle bells from one liner to another. She also loved picking up extra liners that weren’t taped down and dumping the bells.

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And of course each movement she made was accompanied by the delightful auditory jingle of a Christmas bell.

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For a quick color variation, I colored the bottom of one liner with red marker and another green, and challenged her to put corresponding bells over the correct color.

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She aced the test but lost interest in that quickly. This is another great extension for preschoolers, especially if you include less familiar colors like silver and gold. After that she wanted a turn with the markers, coloring on the poster board and inside some of the liners. So all told, this activity filled quite a lot of time on a Sunday morning!

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Playdough Numbers

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Veronika can count up to 10 by rote, which is not uncommon for toddlers; it basically means she’s memorized the order of words, but not the meaning behind them. Today I thought it would be fun to draw her attention to the symbol of each number!

I drew numerals 1 through 8 in thick black marker on sturdy white paper. If you’ll want to reuse the set, particularly with preschool kids, laminate them or cover with contact paper.

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Then show your little one how to roll long snakes of playdough and arrange them over the marker to form each numeral.

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As I worked on each one, I told Veronika the name of the number repeatedly. Of course the playdough lasted about one second before she picked it up and mushed it! But I steadily worked from 1 through 8 in this way.

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I didn’t expect Veronika to make the one-to-one connection between word and symbol yet, or to be able to shape the playdough herself.

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Rather this activity was more about introducing the concept that numbers have both a word and a symbol that go with them. And she certainly loved the chance to play with playdough!

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Let’s Count

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Counting out loud might seem silly when you play with babies who don’t have many words yet, but it’s never too early to learn! At one year old, here are some fun ways Veronika and I count.

First off, little fingers and toes practically beg to be counted.

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You can simply count them out with a touch or a tickle, or recite a classic rhyme like “This Little Piggy”, but add numbers for a twist. (“One little piggy went to market, two little piggies stayed home…”)

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Stairs are another fantastic place to count. Chances are your little adventurer loves climbing up these days. Counting helps cement the notion that numbers go in order, plus helps keep grown-ups patient since those little feet take longer than yours on steep steps!

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We also play with toys that involve counting, like a veggie farm set or Duplo blocks.

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Consider counting bubbles as you blow them. Or pop them!

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You could also try counting when you’re out and about, such as when you wait for a green light to change. Finally, read fun counting books together, especially ones with tactile elements.

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Before you know it, Veronika will be counting along! Once your baby does reach this milestone, don’t worry if he or she counts out of order. “One, two…five” will still mean he or she is learning these new words and concepts!

 

Cardboard Learning Tree

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This is a great activity that combines seasonal holiday crafting with a little learning. If you play your cards right, the kids won’t even know you’ve slipped in some education with their fun!

For the shape of your tree, you can either paint a large piece of cardboard (holiday gift delivery boxes, perhaps?) or poster board. We chose poster board because I knew it would be easier to cut out the tree. Either way, Travis was thrilled when I said I needed the entire thing painted green.

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We left the paint to dry overnight, and the next day I cut out the tree shape.

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Next we gathered supplies for the “ornaments.” Use holiday-themed cookie cutters or other shapes, and trace the outlines on colored construction paper.

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Don’t worry if your kids don’t trace perfectly, you can always neaten up the lines when cutting the shapes out later.

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The next step was even more fun: laminating the cards. Although this step is optional, it will definitely make your paper pieces last longer. Travis adores whenever he’s allowed to help laminate, so this was a big hit.

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I cut out the shapes, and set them aside.

We hung our tree on the wall and added a brown piece of construction paper as the trunk.

The final step was to add Velcro strips to our tree and ornaments. Place the soft side of the Velcro on the tree at random intervals, then attach one rough Velcro piece to each ornament. Travis loved this even before we added the learning element, hanging his ornaments and then changing their positions.

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There are so many games you can play from this point on! First, I numbered the ornaments one through twenty with a wipe-clean marker, for a number search game.

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A simple wipe with a paper towel and we could play alphabet games. One suggestion is to hide the letters in your child’s name, and have them pinpoint those on the tree.

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As an alternative, write the upper and lower case of a batch of letters, and have your child find the pairs.

In full honesty, Travis was way more into the mechanics of this game (taking on and off the ornaments, wiping them clean with paper towels), than he was with the learning games, but we’ll play again over the course of the next few weeks!

Indoor Skip-Count Hopscotch

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Indoor Hopscotch (5)

This last-minute game for a slightly cloudy morning turned out to be a huge hit, though we somewhat adapted regular hopscotch rules. All you need to take the game inside is a roll of painters tape.

To start, I laid out the shape of a hopscotch board on our floor. Be sure to alternate single and double squares.

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For the numbers, I overlapped several pieces of tape so marker didn’t get on the floor. Use permanent marker for the numbers so it doesn’t rub off on feet!

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Travis wanted to help make the board, so some clear tape let him play along!

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I numbered the board in even numbers only, for fun with counting by twos (skip-counting), but you can number yours traditionally if you prefer.

Once the board was set up, we pulled out the bean bags. I gently introduced the idea of hopscotch – tossing the bean bag and hopping to your number – but didn’t harp on the rules since Travis is a bit young for the game.

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He loved counting his hops as he retrieved each bag. He often would toss several bean bags at once, and pick them up as he went along.

Hopscotch has the bonus of working his gross motor skills, since getting all the way off the ground in a hop is still a challenge. Bigger kids can practice alternating hopping on one foot with landing on both in the double squares, a nice challenge.

The board then became a vehicle for his imagination! He self-narrated for quite some time with bean bags and hopping while I was busy making lunch.

Number Crate

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The Number Crate is by far my favorite crate we’ve received from Koala Crate to date, certainly the most M of the STEM acronym (rather obviously, since the topic was numbers). It wasn’t necessarily Travis’s favorite, but we still had lots of fun!

Things started off with scientific mixing and pouring to make Playdough, which he loved. Hmm, what could be in this squishy pouch?

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In a bowl we mixed together our dough conditioner, dough stabilizer, dough concentrate, and dough liquid.

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Travis noticed that it smelled like Fruity Bunnies! He immediately fell to kneading and playing with the dough once it was the right consistency. The provided wooden sticks were great for making “abstract art,” as well as cute porcupines and “birthday cakes”.

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I appreciated that the sticks had no pointy end, unlike the toothpicks we normally have around the house.

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Next it was time to put our playdough to work with the provided Number Activity Mats. Two of these were obviously about numbers – counting balls up to 10 and an intro to measuring. Having a visual cue of each ball he placed while counting really helped Travis count carefully, instead of skipping a number as he’s prone to do!

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The measuring was cute, and great for teaching him to roll long shapes.

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Then we had imaginative fun with play food:

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And play faces:

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The final element of our crate was Domino Cards and the instructions for two Number Games. You could create these cards easily at home with cardboard and permanent markers! The rules of the game are a bit advanced for those on the young end of Koala’s age spectrum (3 to 5 years). For example, matching up pips on the dice was hard for Travis, as suggested in one game.

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We could, however, make domino mazes by matching numbers or pictures. Overall, the activities in this crate will last us a long time for number learning fun, as Travis grows into some of the suggested games.

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For those who don’t have Koala’s pre-mixed playdough pouches, here is an easy at home (and no-cook!) recipe:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 teaspoon oil

1 cup water

2 drops food coloring

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the water, oil, and food coloring, stirring to combine. Knead the dough on a mat or baking sheet until everything is combined. Add a bit more flour if the dough is still a little wet (I ended up adding a generous extra 1/4 cup). Final step? Play!

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Travis loved helping stir up this batch, and was arguably way more into the making of both playdoughs than he was the number games that followed.

As a final gross motor activity, we counted with movement along to a suggestion in the booklet. Bend 1 time, jump 2 times, shake 3 times… and more!

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Number Bead Stringing

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Number Bead Stringing (5)

This project is great on so many levels! It keeps little hands busy if you’re doing chores around the house, works their number skills, and helps hone their fine motor skills.

The original post I saw for the game said to thread beads onto pipe cleaners, but I didn’t have any at home. Instead, we have several laces from a bead lacing kit, so I attached a piece of masking tape to the end of each and numbered them 1 through 10.

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The task was then to thread the correct number of beads onto each string.

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Travis loved counting along as he threaded, and said his creations were necklaces for mommy and daddy – how sweet!

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Don’t fret if your child doesn’t complete threads 1 through 10 in one sitting, this is the kind of game you can leave lying around for a little while.

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Numbered Photo Puzzles

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This craft turned out to be the perfect diversion when rain hampered our outdoor plans for a summer day – it takes several hours from start to finish, which suddenly made the afternoon indoors far less daunting!

First, we needed to select photos to become our puzzle pieces, making this a great activity to talk about relatives you haven’t seen in a while, or about your child’s favorite memories.

Make sure it’s a photo you don’t mind cutting up though! Adults: Cut the photo into pieces the width of the craft sticks you will be using. We made 8 piece puzzles, but you can go bigger or smaller.

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Next we applied a layer of Mod Podge to the craft sticks and adhered our photo pieces. Travis didn’t like how messy his fingers got pressing the slim pieces of photo on so precisely, so soon he was involved with his own (slightly) cleaner Mod Podge game while I finished up the photo gluing.

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And p.s. YES, Mod Podge is vegan! How have we never used this stuff before?

We had to let the project dry, and then we applied a second layer of Mod Podge on top of the photos to set them completely, which meant another round of waiting for it to dry.

But finally it was puzzle time! Adults: Number the sticks of each puzzle with a sharpie in order 1 through 8. (Or, you know, reverse your 1 and 2 by accident, like I did in the photo below).

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Your child will easily be able to form the image by following along in number order.

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Travis loved the way each puzzle came together, and was so proud lining up the numbers. A fantastic way to make counting into a game.

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N Week!

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Even with the Thanksgiving holiday, we squeezed in games and crafts with a letter N theme this week, as we continue on our Letter of the Week journey. Highlights included…

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Nature/natural: This was really our key theme of the week, and we kicked things off with a gorgeous fall walk through a nature preserve before the weather turned very windy. With the collection of nature items we found, we came home and arranged them on contact paper. Simply fold the sticky paper in half when you’re finished and voila – a nature collage!

We also saved some of the leaves and flowers for a natural dye collage (and added a few store-bought berries because I knew their colors would be vibrant). We used cheesecloth, since I knew we wouldn’t be keeping this project, but make your dye collage on muslin or other cloth if you want to save it for doll’s clothing or another project. Once arranged, Travis loved pounding on the items with a mallet, and seeing the beautiful colors that (naturally) resulted.

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Finally, for all those events out in nature, we needed a trail walking stick.

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Nest: This word was closely linked to the nature ideas above. We used our air-dry clay to shape a nest, and pressed in more great finds from our nature walk – pine needles, grasses, and leaves. The process was so fun I devoted a separate blog post to it.

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Noise: Make some of course! Pull out whatever instruments you have in the house, or use items around the house to create instruments, or simply bang on pots and pans. However you make noise, Raffi’s “Let’s Make Some Noise” is the perfect song to do it to.

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Net: To play with a random butterfly net we own, I fashioned “butterflies” from construction paper and we set them aflutter for Travis to chase around. It was so windy that we were able to do this right at our windowsill, though we briefly tried outside as well. Nets are also great for bathtub “fishing” or just for letting your toddler collect little items.

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Newspaper: Old newspapers are the gift that keeps on giving. You can wad them up and use an old baby tub as target practice…

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…or roll into a “golf club” and aim golf balls at a target (such as an empty shoebox on its side). We also made newspaper hats, and Travis was so proud wearing his!

And our weekly extras:

Fine art: My intended project was a bit of a fail. I hoped to encourage Travis to make a necklace by threading o-shaped cereal (we used Freedom O’s) onto licorice (yes, Twizzlers are vegan) but he decided it would be much more fun just to eat the cereal and watch me work. Win some, lose some!

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Food: We had noodles for dinner one evening. Travis has also gotten a kick out of belly buttons lately, so what better snack than a navel orange?

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Books: Library picks this week included Jan Brett’s Noah’s Ark, The Napping House by Audrey Wood, and Dog’s Noisy Day by Emma Dodd.

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Songs: Give a listen to “These are the People in the Neighborhood.” Then follow it up with a walk or drive around your neighborhood!

Math: Nickles are an obvious choice. Travis knows quarters and pennies, so this week I taught him to recognize nickles as well, tough because they are the “medium-sized” ones!

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I also simply left out all his toys and books that feature numbers, so he could return to them throughout the week.

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One neat way to visually depict how numbers increase is to build increasingly tall towers (Duplo blocks are perfect) on a corresponding number mat or puzzle.

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