Learning numbers through play

 

It’s a well-known fact that children learn through play.
While I don’t want Boo to have to sit down in a rigid environment to learn when she is at home, I do see the advantages of learning with parents as well as at school.

Next September sees the start of primary school and, after reading the government’s list of what primary school age children ‘should do’, rather than panic, I took action.

The first thing I did was buy some counters, quite cheaply off eBay. I placed ten of them in a little tin and we play many thing with them.
Tiddly winks, we pretend they are coins. The toys get fed with counters but we count all the time with them.

The next thing I did was ask a nice lady to knit me ten sausages.

Hubster had no idea what they were when they appeared in one of Boo’s play frying pans.

I thought we could sing the rhyme, Ten Fat Sausages and act out the rhyme with the play sausages in the pan.

It is really funny when we do it. Boo likes throwing the sausages and tossing them in the pan.

It doesn’t matter that we don’t count with these two education aids all the time. We play sometimes. We count sometimes but at this age, that is what it’s all about.