Sunday, December 7, 2008

* Numbers Numbers Numbers

These are the number cards that are hanging in our classroom. We have big and little cards. We use the little cards in our centers. The big cards have magnet on the back, so sometimes we take them off and use them on the white boards. These number cards help us learn how to write the numbers 0-30. We learn how to make the strokes of the numbers so we don't make the number backwards.
Each number has a song that helps us remember how to write the number.
We also look at the value of the number on a ten frame. This helps us see the relationship of the value of the number to the value of 10.
We like learning about numbers. We plan to learn about numbers to 100 (even though we only NEED to learn to 30 in Kindergarten) because we are SUPER DOOPER SMART kids!
Our teacher made the number cards. If your Kindergarten would like a copy of the number cards and number songs, please email jprobert@dsdmail.net and write Number Cards in the subject area.
Click here and here to view number songs on line.
Number recognition
It helps to have concrete numbers (plastic or foam) the children can touch. Other than that, games are again an excellent way to reinforce learning.

Here's a simple game: Have a bunch of foam numbers and/or plastic magnetic numbers, and make a heap of them between you and the child. You pick one, hold it up high and call out loud its name, such as "Number five!" and put it to you personal pile.

The child will then find the same number (make sure there are at least two of each number) and does the same, calling its name out loud and gathering the number to himself.
Then you reverse it so that it is first the child's turn to pick any number from the pile, call out its name, and put it to his pile, and you have to find the same number. After all the numbers in the middle pile were gone, the task is to arrange the numbers you have in order.

Play all kids' favorite card game: UNO. That'll motivate children to learn to recognize numbers quickly.

DotMath for kids practices number recognition based on the dot patterns on a die. Several pages of the book are available online (as images).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You can get the complete DotMath for kids system on a DVD. It is only $35 dollars plus $10 dollars shipping. There are more than 200 charts and some lesson plans to explain how to use the system. It is for children from 4 and up. It helps with number recognition, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. There are many math tools as well, like paper calculators. Remember you can get some of the basic charts from the web site for free. The web site does not have any lesson plans. One cool speed trick for subtraction is to add the two top digits together when subtrating 9 from numbers 11 to 18. So 11 - 9 = 2 ( or 1 plus 1 because the ll is two ones). Try it with 16 - 9 = 7 (digits 1 + 6).