Linnea's developmental stages

[ailbhe]

Almost over: How?

Now showing: Why?

Also, she's wrestling with "zero, that is nothing," now. Her favourite number is 22, because it's where Alison lives and it has TWO 2s in it, and 2 is her other favourite number.

She's so affectionate I could burst.

She really really wants help with numbers now. She wants to be able to read, write, talk and manipulate them. I'm not sure how best to help, as I don't want to discourage her, and the temptation to hot-house is very strong. We do number-spotting in the street, and stuff.

The little house in the garden has a number 2 on it.

Comments

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

Can numbers be encouraged in the same way art has been?

[ailbhe]

we draw numbers and play numbers, but it's not enough. So I got 10 stacking buckets, numbered them, and filled them with n bricks, where n=the number on the bucket.

She'll find them on the table tomorrow.

All go bed now zzz.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there's lots of numbers in shopping, and working out how many fishfingers everyone should have, and weighing flour, and cutting play dough into pieces. Bigger, smaller, in twos, in threes. Eventually in halves and quarters and even thirds. I think numbers are probably intuitive enough right until you get sat down at school and told numbers are hard and that you can't possibly add seven and three to make ten if you can't stack them up above a pair of lines and draw a little cross by the side. The language of maths seems to take over the actual manipulation of numbers.

One totally random tip I picked up from goodness knows where was that for number play for young kids, square beads were better than round because they don't roll around.

[naath.livejournal.com]

There's presumably a trick to not implying that "maths is hard"... I'm not sure what it is though.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Elena's really into numbers, and she finds them everywhere. Walking down the street, they are on every mailbox (and we have to go stand by each one and point at the individual digits). License plates on cars too. Stores are the best - she loves our mall, because everyone has signs up saying "15% off", or "2 for $20!" and they all involve numbers.

[ailbhe]

This is what we have been doing, and now, this week, she wants more.

Two oranges in the 1 bucket makes twenty-one.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

When Elena's counting the stairs in our house, it's 10, 11, 12. But other contexts, she sometimes thinks that last number is two-teen.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I'm anti hot housing, but my children love learning, so we do now do things at home. Kate has workbooks & was having fun counting & colouring in last night. Now I see what sort of things are in them, I'll do some for her myself.

I'll do sums over the holidays too with mega bloks.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

A Rummikub set will also give you lots of colour-and-number things - the game itself perhaps too complex, but the tiles would be useful for playing with

[piqueen.livejournal.com]

Have you got large dice she can play with? Lots and lots of dots to count.

[piqueen.livejournal.com]

Oh and that game kids play with the piece of paper folded into a thing that you can count with and open up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cootie_catcher

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

half an idea here.
can you get hold of a couple of completed sudoku games, and delete just a few numbers. Solving those may be useful for sitting still times, eg, train journeys.
Jen was a whizz with numbers, too, from almost as young. She did, however, spend her formative years watching Sesame Street with Gareth. Setting the table for meals was called 'doing the counting' as she had to count how many of each thing we needed. L is probably way past that stage, tho.
All I can think of has already been suggested - total of how many to cook if L has 1, mum has 3 dad has 2, etc
Everyday maths we do without thinking - also a useful distraction technique in shops.
An abacus! just to see what she does with it!
My goodness, I have forgotten what I used to do.

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

There's a couple of good learning number type games on the shelf, all sub £10, which are fun to play for adults, as well as kids, and we've definitely got Uno in stock. Drop by at some point, or send Rob in, and I can do you a shortlist.

[lovingboth]

Dice games.

"Shake, Rattle and Count: Dice Games to Reinforce Numeracy at Key Stages 1 and 2" by Don Balka or the first couple of chapters of "Dice Games Properly Explained" by Reiner Knizia.

If you do TV, try her with Numberjacks on Cbeebies.

[alison.hemuk.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

We just counted everything. I have some very lovely counters which are nice just to play with, move about, make patterns with and so on. Sharing/adding/etc biscuits/raisins/etc. At family dinners count how many people/noses/eyes/hands/fingers/etc round the table.

Money is good to play with too :) Cuisenaire rods, or a Base Ten set. Stuff like Hama beads too. What about computer games? Plenty of them about - Ernest played Zoombinis from her age.

The preschool workbooks with lots of stickers in are sometimes fun, sometimes useless - have a look and see what appeals. Dot-to-dots etc. Oh, I used to make little worksheets for Violet with numbers down one side and different amounts of things down the other side, for her to match up. And looking back on my blog, I did the same for Ernest at 3-and-a-bit, by then with the added bonus of laminating them for him to do over and over again and apparently he liked that a lot :) Enchanted Learning have lots of number and counting type books to print out.

I think you'd have a hard time hot-housing Linnea against her will ;-) If she's eager to learn, I don't think it counts as hot-housing (or not in a 'bad' way anyway).