Math Lessons: Counting to 12, More and Fewer

March 28th, 2007

When kids learn to count, they usually do so until the number 10. I guess that’s just natural, afterall, we only have 10 fingers Plus, a lot of the nursery songs end at 10. For example:

1,2,3,4,5
Once I caught a fish alive
6,7,8,9,10
Then I let it go again

1 little, 2 little, 3 little Indians
4 little, 5 little, 6 little Indians
… 10 little Indian boys

1,2 buckle my shoe
3,4 shut the door
…9, 10 a big fat hen (or according to Barney, begin again)

So now that we’ve mastered counting to 10. It’s time to go a little further… up to 12. Learning to count, recognize and write two more numbers was not much of a problem. Therefore, we surged on ahead with the lesson on ‘more’ and ‘fewer.’ This one takes a little bit more practice as D has to recall the sequencing of numbers e.g. 4 is before 6.

A game suggested by the math workbook we are using (Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley (2002 Edition) is to use 2 dices. Take turns to throw the two dices. The person with the higher number gets to take a crayon/candy/token/whatever-you-want-to-use. The person to collect 12 ‘whatever’, wins the game.
This way, you get to practice both counting up to 12 and figuring out whose number is ‘more’ or ‘fewer’.

We also spent a little time in the playroom building a ‘staircase’ with Jenga blocks. I was trying to illustrate how from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4… it meant just adding one more block. Hence, between two numbers, the ‘higher’ number is always more.

Building blocks