My twins are nearly three and are really interested in counting and numbers. I have been thinking of introducing them to written numbers more often when they are playing so they are ready for nursery when they go in September. They love play dough and it seems like a good combination to practice counting as it is so much fun.
Spring is here (although it doesn’t feel like it in the UK at the moment) and I made up some play dough with some lovely spring colours: pinks and greens and purples. I also added some glitter and a few drops of rose essential oil to make the play dough smell beautiful.
I made a simple play dough mat by drawing some flower stalks and leaves as well as a number to go with it. Then the girls rolled out the play dough and made some flowers to go on top. Charlotte loved this activity and did it several times. Although she is not recognising numbers yet it was brilliant practice for counting skills and 1:1 correspondence – which is where you point to each object as you are counting it.
Rose wasn’t so interested in the number side and she preferred making Hello Kittys from the play dough – but she was still practicing her motor skills and by the end was able to roll and cut the play dough herself – which is a huge improvement as before she would shout until I came and rolled some out for her.
This is easy to extend as you can just add more flowers as they begin to recognise the numbers.
There are lots of other numeracy skills you can practice – for older children you could do some simple calculations – adding would work really well. Molly has started learning simple division this week. It fits in very nicely. I made her a few division calculations and she cute a few flowers with a small cutter and shared them equally across the stems. As this was after school she wasn’t really in the mood and didn’t want to do more than one, but we might come back to it at the weekend.
This is part of a Spring Blog Hop
Here are the blogs taking part:
The Magic of Play, Rainy Day Mum, hands on : as we grow, Putti’s World, Blog Me Mom, Scribble Doodle and Draw, 3 Dinosaurs, Buggy and Buddy, Royal Baloo, Kitchen Counter Chronicle, Nurture Store, The Usual Mayhem, Making Boys Men, Two Daloo, Reading Confetti, Creative Play House, Fantastic Fun and Learning, Here Come the Girls, Blue Bear Wood, Zing Zing Tree, Mummy Mummy Mum, Red Ted Art, Life at the Zoo, My Little 3 and Me, Imprints from Tricia, Smiling Like Sunshine, Frogs & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails, Creative Connection for Kids, 52 Brand New, Inspiration Laboratories, Kid World Citizen, JDaniel 4s Mom, Inspired by Familia, Kids Creative Chaos, All Done Monkey, ArtChoo, Something 2 Offer, Child Central Station, KC Edventures, Momma’s Fun World, Sun Hats and Wellie Boots, Discovering the world through my son’s eyes, Little Artists
Link up any Spring and easter posts here: