Kaley’s here today with some lovely printable counting cards, perfect for teaching your littles their numbers at home. At our house these have been printed, laminated and are already being used (and fought over – might need to print another set shortly).
By the way – do you guys have home laminators? I resisted purchasing one for a long time (just another thing to fit on the desk, right?) but finally caved when we hosted a busy bag swap. I bought this one and, must say, I’ve squeezed a surprising amount of use out of it – especially when paired with dry-erase crayons.
P.S. QUESTION OF THE DAY
Is teaching your littles at home important to you, or do you leave the heavy lifting to the professionals? And, if so, do you have any teaching resources or materials you’d recommend to the group?
There are tons of awesome, modern alphabet cards out there. But nice number cards are few and far between. I was looking for clean, beautiful cards that also satisfied my education background. And I wanted them in English and Spanish. After realizing that they just didn’t exist, I made my own.
The front of the cards have a rhyme to help little ones remember how to write the number, and plenty of numbers to trace. My daughter loves singing the rhyme as she traces the number. We use a dry erase marker so that we can use the cards over and over again.
The back of the cards are all about one-to-one correspondence. Many people mistakenly assume that because their child can count to 10 or 20 or 100, that they understand what the numbers mean. In actuality, they may have memorized the order of the numbers but not grasp that the number actually represents a quantity. You can practice this important skill using simple manipulatives. We count out loud as we place a manipulative on each of the dots.
For manipulatives, I usually just grab whatever I have handy. Dried pasta and beans are always easy. Legos are the perfect size and kids love them. And I just love my stained clothespins so I use them every chance I get. You could also use little felt poms, cotton balls, hershey kisses, buttons, dice, blocks, coins, paperclips, or any other little object you have around the house.
Do you want your own set of number cards? You can download numbers 1-10 from my Facebook page. Simply print them out on cardstock and laminate them or slip them into page protectors for extra durability.
Happy counting!
Question of the Day
Is teaching your littles at home important to you, or do you leave the heavy lifting to the professionals? And if so, do you have any teaching resources or materials you’d recommend to the group?
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