Ten Ways to Play and Learn With Counting Bears

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I'm sure that every preschool and kindergarten classroom has and uses counting bears (or other counters) in some way!  Many homes have them as well, and they can be a fun and simple way to spend some learning time.  We use these Baby Bear Counters from Learning Resources, but if bears are not your thing you can also find pets, people, jungle animals, vehicles, dinosaurs,or even fruit ! My favorite thing about them is how versatile they are.  I easily sat and taught my 2.5 year old and my 4.5 year old at the same time, giving them each different tasks and moving back and forth between them.

There are lots of cute printables available that you can use to play with your counters.  They're stylish and colorful, and if you have the time and desire to use them then that's fantastic.  But by golly, sometimes you just need to grab a bucket of bears and entertain your kids for a while without having to think about it ahead of time.  Of course you can count them, but there are lots of other ways to use them.  Keep these simple ideas in your back pocket for the next time you need a super quick lesson.

1. Count Them

Work on basic one-to-one correspondence.  Set out a row of bears and let your little one practice counting.

2. Skip Count With Them

 Set them out in rows of 2, 5, or 10 and practice skip counting.  Lena was working on counting by 10s in this picture.

3. Sort Them By Color

Set out one bear of each color and have your little one put the rest in the correct piles.

4. Work on Greater Than/ Less Than

 Set out a small pile and a large pile.  Ask which is greater, more, less, fewer, equal.  Practice using those words.

5. Use Them to Measure

 Get out some books or toys (or a ukulele) and practice non-standard measurement.  How many bears long is the object?  This ukulele was about 12 bears long.

6. Use Them for Basic Math Facts
Set out simple math problems.  2 bears + 2 bears = 4 bears.

7. Make Patterns with Them

 Younger children can make basic A/B patterns while older children can work on more complicated patterns.

8. Make Shapes or Words With Them

Arrange them into shapes or letters.  Use them to spell simple words.

9. Wash Them

Hand your kiddos a bowl of water, some bears, a squirt of soap, and a rag.  Bath time!

10. Use Them for Imaginative Play
I know my girls love to plunk them around, make them talk, put them to bed, wrap them up, and so on.  Encourage your children to do the same!

- Original source---See more at: http://www.cuttingtinybites.com/2015/01/10-ways-to-play-and-learn-with-counting.html#sthash.xv9GGUaC.dpuf

How to Teach Subitizing for Numbers 1-4

How to Teach Subitizing: 1 – 4

The comparison of numeracy to literacy is curious.

Learning math is the opposite of learning to read. When you read, usually simultaneous to learning a language, you sound out words and then put meaning to them. When you learn to count and do math, you know the meaning inherently and then put a language to it.

At some point we learn to recognize words without sounding them out. And at some point we learn to recognize quantities without counting them out. This is called subitizing.

The Your Baby Can Read program uses the concept of subitizing to teach reading – you show your baby the word alongside the object. So the shape of the word car is as recognizable as a car itself.

The children using Your Baby Can Read don’t learn to sound out words. They don’t understand the concept of letters any more than babies not using the program. But they instantly recognize the shapes of the words – giving them an (assumed) advantage.

Aside: We didn’t use the “Your Baby Can Read” program, not because it was gimmicky (I love anything that looks gimmicky), but because there is a huge DVD element to it. We decided not to put Daughter in front of the TV for her first 2 years. A decision we stuck with, but sometimes was a struggle! This article contains a “your baby can count” type program. (And it’s a free download!)

How did we learn subitizing?

I don’t recall having been taught it directly. Although I could be wrong. The research on it has been happening since the early 1900s, so it might have been taught without being labeled “subitzing.”In a previous article about why learning to subitize is important, Christine Guest commented that she learned it out of frustration for counting with chanting.I wonder how many of us do that. Are grownups so adept at subitizing that they forget that’s how we assess quantity? Maybe we’re taught to chant-count because that’s the way we think counting is.

How do you teach subitizing?

Images are accompanied by the written numeral as well as the number spoken aloud. The images would be printed on cards, done via video or “live” with 3D objects. I’m still working on the numbers 5-10 and up, but for the numbers 1-4, the following 8 styles of image sets would be done twice. Once using the same objects for each image set, and once using different objects for each image set.

1. Organized in a row vertically.
2. Organized in a row horizontally.
3. Organized in a row diagonally.
4. Organized in a row other way diagonally.
5. Organized in a regular shape (triangle, square).
6. Organized in a differently oriented regular shape.
7. Organized in an irregular shape.
8. Organized in a different irregular shape. (There will be more of these for 4 than 3, etc.)

The objects could be blocks, cars, little dolls, just about anything. I created the set below from blocks I found left in Daughter’s block set. Each zip file contains a few .jpg files with 4″ x 6″ pictures. You can print them at home or ship them to Walmart,Target, CVS, etc. for printing. I left off the MathFour.com logo so the kiddos wouldn’t get distracted. Please share them along with links back here.

• Subitizing with One
• Subitizing with Two
• Subitizing with Three
• Subitizing with Four

Click here for original source!

Subitizing Plates

I know you may be thinking, "Well, duh, easy enough to make and no explanation needed." Well, that is true, BUT I made a little presentation on the plates that I hope you watch and enjoy! 

There you have it!! And this is not just a Kinder or 1st grade thing--it's never a bad thing to work on strengthening number sense! Go make some dot plates!! To help you out a little, I am including a page of suggested dot arrangements. Click the pic below to download your freebie!

 

Triangle-Circle Clown

By Keren Perles

If your child is just learning the difference between different types of shapes, you can review them by making a triangle-circle clown. Your child will enjoy creating an entire picture out of nothing but circles and triangles of different sizes. This clown craft also makes a good activity for birthday parties or other gatherings with several young children.

What You Need:

• Construction paper
• Craft foam, fabric scraps and other materials
• Scissors
• Poster board (optional)

What You Do:

1. Before the activity, cut out circles and triangles of various sizes. A few of them should be about the size of an adult hand, some of them should be the size of an adult fist, some of them should be the size of a child’s fist, and some of them should be even smaller than that. Cut the shapes out of various materials – whatever you have handy.
2. Tell your child that you'll be making a picture of a clown using only triangles and circles. Ask your child which shape would work best for the clown’s head. Then ask which one would work best for the clown’s hat. Have her try out the combination by putting two of the largest shapes together and see if it looks like a clown’s head with a clown’s hat. Adjust as needed.
3. Help your child glue these two pieces onto a piece of construction paper or a large piece of poster board to make the clown’s head and hat.
4. Now ask your child which shapes would work best as the clown’s body. His feet? His hands? There is no right answer to these questions, but help your child arrange the pieces until she's satisfied with how her choices look, and then glue them down. Keep in mind that strings of circles may work for arms or legs.
5. Follow this same process to add two eyes, a nose, and a mouth to the clown. Then help your child decorate the rest of the clown’s body with smaller circles and triangles. Voila! A circus clown made from shapes!

If your child has also learned about squares or other shapes, you can include those on the picture as well.

Make Your Own Abacus

By Amy Brayfield

Looking for another way to practice basic math skills? If so, have your kid make an abacus. Countries all around the world have been using the abacus for thousands of years to make math problems easier to visualize and calculate. Even children who claim to hate math will be fascinated by this old-fashioned and incredibly simple tool. This abacus is surprisingly easy to construct and is a great way for visual and tactile learners to practice their arithmetic.

What You Need:

• Pencil
• 9 craft sticks
• 56 large pony beads
• 8, 4-inch bamboo skewers (if yours are longer, you can cut them to the right length)
• Wood glue

What You Do:

1. Lay three craft sticks down so they are parallel. Use the pencil to draw eight matching lines on each stick, evenly spaced and centered across the length of the craft sticks.
2. Take the bamboo skewers and align them with the pencil marks. There should be one craft stick at each end of the skewers. The third craft stick should be in the middle, about 1 inch away from one of craft sticks on the end.
3. Put a thin line of glue on each of the pencil lines you've drawn.
4. Carefully thread seven beads on each of the eight skewers. Place the skewers on the glue lines, arranging the beads so that two beads fall into the 1-inch space between the two closely-placed sticks and the other five fall into the larger space between the middle and end sticks. Let the sticks dry.
5. Glue three craft sticks on top of the bamboo skewers so they line up with the sticks below, taking care to keep the beads divided. Let the sticks dry.
6. Glue the last three craft sticks on top of the sticks you've just glued down. Let dry.
7. Flip the abacus over so that the stacked sticks are on the bottom. Depending on the size of the beads, you may have to add more craft sticks to the bottom. The stacked sticks let the beads slide smoothly on the skewers and prevent them from scraping along the surface you're working on.

Now your child has a homemade abacus to practice important math skills! The abacus is a great tool to visually teach your child about addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and even place value.

Sorting Autumn Leaves!

By Tina Cho

Here's an easy and fun fall activity to do with your preschooler. Enjoy the outdoors and the fall season by taking a nature walk with your child, collecting pretty leaves, and sorting them. Not only will this simple project help your child learn valuable math and science concepts of sequencing and size, but she'll also get a chance to appreciate the beauty of nature and its changing seasons as she creates a pretty leaf collage.

What You Need:

• 4-5 different-sized leaves
• 12" x 18" construction paper or two 8.5" x 11" papers taped together
• Glue

What You Do:

1. Take a nature walk. Gather four or five of your child's favorite colored leaves from a park or your backyard. If you live in a four-season climate, take advantage of the brilliant crimson, gold, and brown leaves. If you live in an all-year sunny climate, just collect interesting leaves of various types and sizes.
2. When you get home, spread the leaves around your work table. Point out the different sizes of leaves to your child, small, medium, and large. Ask her to put the leaves in piles of small, medium, and large. For very young kids, you can sort into just small and large leaves.
3. Put your large piece of construction paper on the table. Tell your child she can line the leaves up from smallest to largest. Have her put the smallest leaf to the left and the biggest leaf on the right side of the paper. Continue asking her questions such as “Which leaf comes next? Which leaf is the next biggest?”
4. Once she has them lined up correctly, show her how to make small dots of glue on the backs of the leaves. She can then glue the leaves on the paper from smallest to largest. (Make sure she glues them back on in the right place.)
5. Have her write her name on the paper and lay it aside to dry.

When it's finished, you now have a wonderful, autumn leaf collection to hang on your wall as a decoration. Refer back to this helpful visual whenever you ask your child questions about relative size. You can also use it to discuss with her the four seasons and how the trees change with each season.

Tina Cho has been an elementary teacher for 11 years, mainly in the kindergarten classroom. She is currently a freelance writer.

Classifying Objects FUN!

Give your child's quantitative and verbal skills a boost by encouraging her to play with and describe all kinds of items! Simple actions such as grouping and counting items based on their similarities and differences will enable her to master more complicated math concepts down the line such as odd and even numbers, integers, as well as multiplication and division.

By classifying articles based on color, shape, size and texture and then discussing each object's characteristics with your child, you'll also greatly expand her vocabulary as well as her sorting abilities.

What You Need:

• Lots of items for sorting and categorizing

What You Do:

1. Go to the store and buy a bunch of stuff that you need around the house. Encourage your child to help you put the items you purchase away. Ask her to describe each item she's putting it away in terms of basic attributes such as shape and texture.
2. Let your child help put away the dishes. Ask her to explain why she's putting each object in a specific place. Then, have her count the number of objects in each pile.
3. Go on a hunt around the house for fun things to categorize. We used coins, buttons and books, but you don't have to limit yourself to these objects.
4. Tell your child to sort the items you found based on color and size and how they're used. Finally, ask her to count the objects in each group.
5. Have your child separate her toys into piles. Ask her to identify talk about differences in shapes and sizes that she sees.

When classifying objects with your child in more regimented activities, and even in day-to-day life, try to use words to compare and contrast objects that are based on their similarities and differences. Size, texture, shape, and overall appearance are all important qualities that should be considered. Always count groups of items you see around the house. Eventually, you'll be ready to count by multiples and explain odd and even numbers.

Click here for original activity source!

Egg Carton Sorter

By Korey Marquez

Identifying colors is a necessary skill that people use every day—for choosing which clothes to wear, reading signs, following traffic signals and describing the surrounding world. Introduce your child to this bright new world of colors using ordinary household objects such as buttons, beads, and marbles. She can group these objects into different sections and learn to recognize their written names using a homemade egg carton sorter. This activity provides an interactive, colorful way for your preschooler to practice color recognition!

What You Need:

• Paper egg carton (half-dozen or full dozen)
• Paint or markers in 6-12 different colors
• Writing pen
• Small, brightly-colored trinkets such as buttons, beads, or glass stones

What You Do:

1. Help your child paint the lid of the egg carton with white paint or cover it with plain paper.
2. Have your child make a small spot of each color on the egg carton lid. Write the name of the color above it with a pen.
3. On the inside of the carton, use paint or markers to designate a color for each as well.
4. Ask your child to sort the trinkets according to color, placing each one in the appropriate well. Start a conversation about the different colors with your child as you sort, asking her to name the color or point to it as she sorts each trinket. Show her the word on the lid that corresponds with each color.

To store the activity for later use, simply close the carton lid with the trinkets inside. The contents will be kept sound and ready for the next color sorting exercise!

Make a Bungee Scale

By Sue Bradford Edwards and Pam Schiller and Lynne Peterson

Because your child’s favorite plush cat is bigger than a small brick, she probably thinks Kitty weighs more. But weight is more complex than the size of an object. Introduce the concept of weight to your child by making a fun and easy-to-use bungee scale! This project will enhance your child's understanding of weight and will even provide her will a foundation for understanding more complex scientific principles such as density and gravity.

What You Need:

• A large plush toy (we used a kitty)
• A dense object (we used a brick)
• A variety of other objects, some of which are deceptively heavy or light
• Bungee cord
• Bucket
• Roll of paper
• Marker

What You Do:

1. Find a rod with a wall behind it to build your scale. You can use a rod in a closet or perhaps a rod on a rolling rack set near a wall.
2. Fasten the bungee cord to the bucket. You may need to wrap the bungee cord around the bucket’s handle and secure the fastener to the cord itself.
3. Hang this from the rod.
4. Place the objects that you plan to weigh near the scale. You will need a large plush toy (kitty), a smaller dense object (brick), and a variety of other objects.
5. Don’t let your child pick anything up yet, but explain to her that she is going to help you arrange the objects by how much they weigh. Begin with Kitty and the brick. Which does she think is heavier?  She will probably say her toy since it is bigger. Set them back down with the object she thinks is lighter to the left.
6. Now show her another one of the objects. Does she think it is lighter than Kitty? Heavier than the brick? Or somewhere in the middle. Arrange the objects in order, lightest to heaviest.
7. Take a photo of the row of objects so that you can compare this line up with the results you get when you weigh each object.
8. Explain that you are going to weigh things using your scale. The heavier each object is, the farther down the bucket will go. 
9. Have her put the plush toy in the bucket. How far does the bucket drop? Draw a mark even with the top of the bucket. Label the mark – Kitty.
10. Now weigh the brick. Again, make a mark at the top of the bucket and label the mark – Brick. It is lower than the mark for the Kitty because the brick weighs more.
11. Continue until you have weighed each object and marked it on the paper. Arrange the objects by their actual weight. How does this line up compare to the lineup in the photo?

As an add-on to this activity, encourage your child to arrange the objects on the ground in order of their weight.

Adapted with permission from "Count On Math: Activities for Small Hands and Lively Minds." Copyright 1997 by Pam Schiller and Lynne Peterson. Used with permission of Gryphon House, Inc., Maryland. All Rights Reserved.

Pumpkin Math

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?

Post Written and Created by Math Maniac

This story is about a group of kids who are asked by their teacher to figure out how many seeds are in 3 different pumpkins. They talk about the size of the pumpkins, estimating and counting ideas. Some kids count by 2's some by 5's and some group the seeds into piles of 10. There is also some great information in this story about how to estimate how many seeds a pumpkin has just by looking at the outside.

I love this lesson because it combines my love of math literature with counting and estimating routines. I began this lesson by presenting my students with 2 pumpkins. I did this lesson with second graders but it would work with other kids K-3 with some small adaptations. One was a very small Jack be Little pumpkin and the other was a larger pie pumpkin. I asked them to estimate which one had more seeds. Everyone was convinced that the larger pumpkin would have a lot more seeds. We made some estimates but they were really all over the place ranging from 17-1000.




Next we cut the pumpkins in half and adjusted our estimates based on what we saw. The estimates for the smaller pumpkin ranged from 80-200 and the estimates for the larger pumpkin ranged from 101-320.


The inside of the larger pumpkin



Inside of the smaller pumpkin

Kids worked in small groups and got all the seeds separated from the other guts. When I do this lesson again, I will be sure to have more pumpkins because despite this being a smaller group of students, there were to many kids working on each pumpkin. I would recommend no more than 4-5 kids per pumpkin for optimum working conditions. Kids continued to adjust and refine their estimates as they put the seeds all in one place. It was obvious to all students that there were more seeds in the large pumpkin than the smaller one.


After a quick rinse of the seeds, the groups counted them mostly grouping into 10's. We came to the conclusion that the small pumpkin had 134 seeds and the large one had 285. We spent some time comparing these numbers and wiring them in different ways. We finished up the lesson by reading the book. It was interesting for kids to compare their own experience with counting the seeds to the experience of the kids in the book.

This was a fun fall lesson and definitely one I will be doing in the future! There are a lot of grade levels that I could apply this lesson with.

                                                       

Ideas for Manipulatives

Created and Written by Jacquie Fisher

 

Teaching kids to count to 100 is a big milestone and one that parents and teachers work on for a few years. 

It's a long journey fraught with numbers like "fifteen-ten" and other assorted creative ways to count. 

And along the way, kids are also learning to count by 2's, 5's, 10's and categorize numeric values.

For a number of years, I remember my kids coming home with a note asking that each child in the class bring in "100 of their favorite item" to celebrate the 100th day of school.

100 of their favorite item -- whew!  Now those were some long discussions --

Kid:  "How about 100 stuffed animals Mom?"

Me:  How about we think of something a little smaller?

Kid:  "I want to bring in something that the other kids won't bring."

Me:  Ok, how about crayons?

Kid:  No

Me:  Tattoos?

Kid:  No

And so it went for about 50 more suggestions until we finally came up with a winner! 

And in the process, we also came up with quite a list of possibilities in case you're having trouble thinking of small items for your 100th Day of School.

9K+

100 Items to Use to Count to 100

There are some super fun ways to help kids practice all this counting.  One popular idea is to introduce a 100's Jar.  Similar to an estimation jar in many classrooms, a 100's Jar holds one-hundred pieces of the same item. 

If you use plastic bottles or jars, you can introduce a number of math concepts such as volume, size and weight.  So the first part of our list includes lots of items that can be counted, sorted, categorized and compared.

I had some extra canning jars that we used to do some counting and comparison.  Just make sure that the jar or bottle you use it transparent so the kids can see & explore the items inside it.  I've also tried to make life easier for you by including affiliate links to items that may not be well-known or might be hard to find.

Items to Count

Since items in this group are so similar, they are great to use for counting by 2's, 5's and 10's when they are sorted.

1.  Paperclips

2.  Pencils

3.  Ping pong balls

4.  Cap Erasers (great to revive old pencils)

5.  Pennies (use with other coins to learn how to count money)

6.  Nickels

7.  Dimes

8.  Quarters

9.  Plastic spoons

10.  Binder Clips (good for finger dexterity)

11.  Puzzle pieces (then put together the puzzle)

12.  Game tokens

13.  Rubber bands

Items to Categorize by Color

14.  Guitar picks

15.  Golf balls (they come in white, pink, yellow and orange)

16.  Crayons

17.  Playing cards (sort by color or suit)

18.  Marbles (sort by shade/color)

19.  Plastic eggs (sort by color or size)

20.  Wooden Beads  (can also be used for threading)

21.  Assorted Pom Poms

22.  Match box cars

23.  Spools of Thread

24.  Barbie shoes

25.  Glow Sticks (these are great to wear as bracelets too)

26.  Mini erasers

27.  Socks (just have each child bring in 4 mismatched socks)

28.  Rubber bracelets or rings

Items to Sort & Measure for Height/Length

Grab a ruler and have the kids take measurements while they sort these items.  You can also have them arrange each item from shortest to longest once they are measured.

29.  Barettes (sort by color or length)

30.  Bookmarks

31.  Old keys

32.  Golf tees

Sort by Type

There will be a variety of ways to sort the following items.  Sort animals by habitat, continent, etc.  Batteries can be sorted by type of size, stickers can be sorted by person/place/thing or have the kids come up with their own groupings.

33.  Backpack clip toys or animals

34.  Happy Meal toys

35.  Tattoos

36.  Small Maze Puzzles (by shape or color)

37.  Plastic animal figurines (by animal)

38.  Stickers

39.  Postage stamps (by picture, face value, etc)

40.  Cookie cutters

41.  Trading cards

42.  Shrinky dinks or charms

43.  Batteries

44.  Pieces from board games

Some of our nature items would also fit in this category such as rocks, seashells, pinecones and flowers.  They are all listed below under natural materials.

Such a fun idea - compare popcorn both unpopped & popped!

Learn more about Popcorn Math & Science with this fun activity

Items that Teach Volume/Area

I love this type of item -- things that change the space they take up depending on how they are presented to the kids.  These are pefect for a math/science discussion!

45.  Paper or Plastic Cups (stacked one inside the other and stacked as a pyramid)

46.  100 millileters of a liquid (look at it in a cup and then pour it out on a cookie sheet or pie plate to discuss area)

47.  Balloons (both blown up and flat)

48.  Popcorn kernels (unpopped and popped)

Items to Craft with after you Count

So many fun craft projects can be done with these materials so have the kids count and then craft!

49.  Buttons

50.  Mini play dough containers

51.  Pipe cleaners

52.  Paint Brushes

53.  Popsicle Sticks

54.  Mini Duct Tape

55.  Q-tips (then use them to paint)

56.  Markers

57.  Self-ink Stamps

58.  Plastic beads (make a necklace)

59.  Rainbow loom bands (make a bracelet)

60.  Little Notebooks (use for drawing, tracing or even graphing the 100 items)

61.  Glue sticks 

62.  Cotton balls

If you use mini-marshmallows and toothpicks for your 100's jar, you can then pair them to create constellations for science exploration!

Items that Combine with Science & Engineering for Kids

Super items to use for counting and then experimenting!

63.  Mentos (count and then use them to make volcanoes)

64.  Toothpicks (combine with mini-marshmallows to make constellations)

65.  Sugar Cubes  (yep, the still sell these at grocery stores and you can use them to build too!)

66.  Legos (then race to see who can stack them the quickest)

67.  Blocks (then see who can construct a bridge or the tallest building)

Have a stacking challenge with any of the next three iems --

68.  Checkers

69.  Poker chips

70.  Dice

Food Items to use for 100 Days Snack

A very popular activity is creating a snack mix on the 100th Day so here's a few things the kids might want to eat together --

71.  Pretzels

72.  Marshmallows or mini-marshmallows

73.  Fruit snack packets

74.  Cereal

75.  Dried pasta

76.  Grains of rice (dry and cooked for science)

77.  Jelly beans

78.  Clementine oranges

79.  Mini boxes of raisins

80.  Hershey Kisses

81.  Candy hearts

82.  Grapes

83.  Tea bags

84.  Baby carrots

85.  Cheese sticks

86.  Goldfish crackers

87.  Oyster crackers

88.  Chocolate chips

89.  Cookies

90.  Tic tacs

91.  Gumballs

92.  Sticks of gum

93.  Baby pickles

And don't forget the popcorn from above too!

Natural items to count, sort and explore

I would suggest having a Magnifying Glass handy with these items so the kids can explore them further.

94.  Acorns

95.  Pinecones

96.  Leaves

97.  Plant seeds

98.  Rocks (use with shells to compare area)

99.  Sea shells

100.  Flowers (real or plastic)

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