Beginning Number Concepts

Say hello again to my buddy Lorien.  :)  She has been working with me this past year to get ready for Kindergarten.

When I'm first introducing numbers to a child, I do it in several ways.  (Again, I'm of the belief that the more senses you experience a concept with, the better you will learn the concept.  Additionally, looking at a concept from different perspectives helps with the understanding of the concept as a whole.)

The above image shows the result of just teaching Lorien how to write each of the numbers.  She already knew how to VERBALLY count to 10, and could kind of count to 20.  (She was still tripping up around 15 and 16 like most preschoolers do.)

We sat on the couch, side by side, each with a dry-erase board.  This picture was after about 20 minutes of work.  (Word to the wise: children LOVE dry-erase boards.  They do wonders for attention spans.  Use a small marker for small board writing - those chunky ones are better left to teachers writing on a board in the classroom.)

So this was an introductory activity - we talked about how the ABCs have 26 letters to learn - but the number system only has 10!  (Again, I should have started with "zero."  I'm learning as I go along LOL.)  It takes frequent review and practice to learn to write the numbers correctly.

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Once I feel like a child has a good grasp of numbers 0 - 10, I will move on to how the numbers work as we go higher than 10.  When introducing this concept, I very much do all the "heavy lifting" - this activity will wear a child out the first few times.  So I balance keeping her engaged and looking for patterns with not having to puzzle over this new concept too much. 

Sometimes I arrange the cards in rows of 1 - 9 with 10 starting a new row (most flashcard sets, sadly, don't have a card for zero), and sometimes I arrange it the way shown (1 - 10, 11 - 20, etc.)  When I'm teaching how to count in the teens and count 21, 22, 23, 24, etc, I do it the second way. 

Here's the important thing: the arranging of the numbers by groups of 10s helps a child to see that she doesn't have to memorize 100 different numbers to be able to count to 100 - she just has to understand the concept of how they are related.  It's adorably thrilling to a child to discover the patterns in the cards - "Look! This row has 4's! 4, 1-4, 2-4, 3-4." 

This activity employs both the visual and auditory senses, and when the child participates with card placement, kinesthetic as well.

Summary of my multi-sensory learning thoughts:

- the more senses you experience a concept with, the better you will learn the concept

- looking at a concept from different perspectives helps with the understanding of the concept as a whole

Summary of my general teaching thoughts:

- children LOVE dry-erase boards; use a small marker for small board writing