Counting

We often use this magnetic animal Tic Tack Toe board for counting! It's visual - easy to use and appeals to the toddlers as a great manipulative. The squared off sections makes it easy to place the animals while counting. There are 10 pieces - just the right amount so we don't get overwhelmed and most of the children can now count to 10. It's also great to do sequencing.

One of my garage sale finds! If I remember correctly it was 50 cents.

Count to 10

I found these icecube trays on Saturday and I wanted to use them right away! I came up with this activity.

I had some dollar store dowels....

....I measured them to fit the tray.

My hubby cut them to size for me!

I sanded the rough ends with an emery board - I couldn't find my sand paper - LOL

I prepared the tray to hold the dowels while they dried. I used stick tack pressed into the tray.

I painted each dowel a different colour so we could use this for a colour activity as well.

Then I Mog Poged them!

The completed project! :)

The kids LOVED this!

Pirates booty!

Here we are exploring our Pirates sensory bin! The children seemed to really enjoy searching the items within!

Discovering how the chest opened

Investigating the booty!

Wearing the jewels!

What else do we see?!

Lining up the objects

Oh there are two eyeballs!

Lots of pairs were being made!

The best part was wearing the jewels!

This sensory bin turned into a bit of a math lesson as well - matching objects - making pairs and identifying colours ( We all liked the red necklace the best! )



Sensory Tub Counting Search

I love this great counting activity from Playing in Prep! I can see using this for the alphabet as well! The extensions on this can be endless!
http://playinginprep.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/sensory-tub-counting-search/

I first saw this linked on Funtastic Early Childhood Ideas facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=224459094245373&view=wall&notif_t=event_wall#!/pages/Funtastic-Early-Childhood-Ideas/172996439419071

Counting placecard

While at the dollar store one day I found these smooth flat oval stones - I purchased them for counting and created a counting placecard for self direction. This is one of the popular activities in the classroom and it was cheap and easy to put together! The placecard allows for a successful outcome, which I think is important for toddlers, to encourage further skill development and independant counting while exploring the classroom.

Matching Geometric Shapes

I selected some wooden geometric shapes for the children to identify and placed them inside the cloth bag - then identical shapes were laid out on the table. The children were to reach inside the bag without looking and feel for the shapes one by one, and match them with the ones on the table. The concept of 'not looking' inside the bag was difficult - the matching was easy!

Counting common objects

In our classroom, we thought it would be a good idea to use toys and resources that were commonly utilized by the children, to present our counting activities. We surmised it would encourage counting and number recognition outside of formal circle times. The results were very positive and we did see children independantly repeating the exercises as they had experienced during formal presentations.

In this activity the children are presented with a card that has a number on it. The child tells the teacher what that number is, and then selects that number of blocks to build a tower.

Once the tower is built the teacher will assist in counting the number of blocks out loud, so the class can follow along.

As a result, we now observe the children building towers and counting the blocks during independant play times!

In this activity we use the numbers from a puzzle and the Little People from the play sets.

We started out by placing the numbers and Little People out ourselves and then asked the children to go over and identify the group that has a selected amount in it.

Once that was accomplished the children then layed them out on their own.

Again the result was independant counting practice during informal class time.

Counting spots

These ladybugs were purchased at the dollar store - unpainted - I painted them each with a different number of spots and then put the answer on the back. So for a dollar and some paint - which I had on hand - a new counting activity was born!

Matching!

There are so many creative teachers around - I love to see what they create - then I steal copy their ideas and make it my own! Here is my version of the flower pot people I saw - I added the felt to make mine different and to hopefully discourage the children from putting them into their mouth. It's worked so far! :)
Another successful addition to the classroom.