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.