Apple Math

This last week, we did an apple theme here. I came up with a couple new pages for the week and thought I would share them here.

The first was inspired by Raegan's: 

Apple File Folder Game- Counting

I wanted to do this, but didn't want to do the file folder thing. So I made this. I printed it and laminated it. I can write whatever I want on the baskets with a dry erase or wet erase marker. I think you can print from the image, but if not, here is the link in my google documents.

I had her first sort the skittles into three different bowls, then she put the correct number into each basket.

This was inspired by my 

Apple Seed Counting

I wanted to put the seeds on the apple and have the kids do math with them. The idea here is you put seeds in each apple, then the child counts and writes how many under the apple. You decide if the child is doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division...write that in the square between the apples. The child writes the answer on the provided line. I liked this because I can use the same sheet for all three of my children. I laminated it so I don't have to do a bunch of printouts. My kids get a big kick out of using the markers to write. Here is the link in Google Documents.

Lucky Charms Math

I gave J a little bowl of Lucky Charms cereal and first had him sort the marshmallows using the sorting printout here.  I actually had a bowl of cereal to sort myself.  I've found this often helps J stay focused and work more independently.  Sometimes if he's doing an activity with me just sitting there next to him, he'll ask for my help more often.  If I have my own activity to work on, he's fine doing this by himself.  It's also a great way to teach something new since I'm basically modeling what to do (and helped a lot when we did the charting later).

After sorting the marshmallows, he graphed them using the chart here.  We practiced reading the graph to find out how many marshmallows he had in each category (without actually counting), and quickly determine which category had the most and the least.
 J did really well on this.  He waited so patiently to eat his marshmallows (I did let him eat the broken ones and the cereal as we sorted).



Here's another chart that would work well for coloring, but there's not enough space for actually charting the marshmallows.

Age attempted: 35 months

Apple Seed Counting

If you decide to spend some time learning about apples this Fall, you might choose to do the Apple Print Activity Raegan shared last year. Or perhaps you will choose to have apples as snacks one day. Either way, you will be cutting into an apple. As you do, you can add a number counting activity!

AGE RANGE

A great thing about counting things is that any age can benefit from it. If you have a baby or pre-toddler, you can count for them. My little 17 month old can count to two or three if you say "one..." That is just from her hearing me count things all the time. The Toddlers and older can start to count on their own, though young toddlers will need a lot of help.

SUPPLIES

• Apple
• Knife

PREP

Cut apple in half

ACTIVITY

Remove the apple seeds from the apple. Count the seeds with your child. For the younger crowd, just count. For the older toddler and preschooler, have her count them herself by holding them and counting. For the older preschooler and older, do some simple addition or subtraction with the seeds depending on your child's ability.

This activity was inspired by The Toddler's Busy Book, page 195.

Apple File Folder Game- Counting

Here is another example of a file folder game I made, this time focusing on counting. If you'd like the template for the small baskets, here you go! Here's the template for the large basket, if you'd like it.
Okay, for the activity. The file folder with 12 baskets is for my 3 year old, the 6 baskets are for my 19 month old. I printed, cut and glued down the baskets where I wanted them. Then, again, I "laminated" them with packing tape. This game I'm really excited about because it's very versatile. You can write on the baskets using a Vis-A-Vis marker, or dry erase marker. Wipes right off, so the game can change as your child's needs change. Again, super cheap to make, easy to store, and the girls both had a blast.
Since our theme this week is apples (at our house), I used red, green, and yellow "apples" (Skittles) for counting.
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For my 1 year old: We are working on 1-1 correspondence and recognizing numbers. I wrote a #1 on each basket and she has to put 1 skittle in each basket.

For my 3 year old: I wrote different numbers, 1-10 (I started easy for her for the introduction to the game), and she has to count out the correct number of apples for each basket.

Some options:

• Different numbers
• Patterns (AB, ABB, AABB, etc)
• Introduction of a new number (ex:write 7 on each basket, and they will get between 6-12 times to practice counting out that number per game played)
• Addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc
• Letter matching. Instead of candy apples, put a group of letters (paper, magnetic, etc) and write a letter on each basket. Have them match the correct letters. It could be capitals to capitals, or capital to lower case.
• Color matching

Roll the Dice

For those of you that have a child (or children) that aren't big fans of sitting down and learning something new, don't be discouraged. My daughter is one of those...at least at this stage in her life. If she can have some creative freedom, she'll tolerate it. If I can sing it, she'll like it. But if it involves food, she's all over it. Begging for it. Ask her to count, and you may hear, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 16, 20, 19, 100..." (voice trailing off, somehow ending the sentence with a forward roll). Ask her to count jellybeans? A perfect and precise demonstration.
So about once a week, we use food to practice a skill.
I have a number of different kinds of dice. Any will do, though I do love dice with the physical numbers on them instead of the dots.

For young counters, it helps to either move the item they are counting physically. That helps prevent the double and triple counting. You know, when there are 5 jellybeans but somehow they counted 14? It gets a little confusing for kids, even through kindergarten, to try to count a group of items without forgetting which ones they've already counted.

Anyways, I have a poster board that has circles on it. Or you can put down a piece of construction paper and draw circles around the piles once they've counted them.

Materials: Dice, candy/cracker/something yummy

Activity:
Roll the dice. Say the number out loud, and practice counting the candy.
Once the correct number has been counted, put them in a pile and draw a circle around them.
Repeat! You can write the number in the circle if you want.

Easy activity, little preparation, and once they get the hang of it and learn a few numbers, they can do it independently. Yay!

Counting With Eggs

This is a fun activity to do in conjunction with Easter to focus on math learning. One skill teachers look for when screening for kindergarten is the ability to touch and count objects, and this activity helps teach that.

AGE RANGE
You can do this anywhere from two and up. Some children sometime between 18 months and up could do this. You could also do a variation of this with children younger than 18 months to expose the child to counting.

SUPPLIES

• Egg carton
• Plastic Eggs* Note: You can do this activity without eggs if you want to
• Marker
• Items to fill eggs

PREP

• Write a number on each egg. The photo above shows a pound sign (#) before the number. That isn't necessary, and I think just the number would be best. Write the numbers 1 through 12. *If you are doing this activity without the eggs, just write a number in each egg spot directly on the carton.
• Fill the eggs with something. You can use snacks such as raisins, candy, or small toys if you have some that will fit 12 in one egg. Put as many items in each egg as the number on the egg. So if you were doing raisins, you would put one raisin in egg one, seven in egg 7, etc.

ACTIVITY

For Preschooler
Have your preschooler identify what number is on the outside of the egg. Have your preschooler open each egg and count the items inside. Have him take each item out as he counts it so he will get practice touching and counting items. Many preschoolers can count from 1-12, so it might be more of a challenge to do the numbers out of order.

For Toddler
Work in number order 1-12. Before you open the egg, have your toddler identify the number on the egg. Most won't know; tell you child what the number is if she doesn't know. Then open the egg. The next step will range based on toddler's ability. Younger toddlers will most likly need you to pull the item, count it, and hand it to her. The benefit of this is she will hear counting, feel the counting, see the counting, and if it is a treat/snack, taste the counting :). The older toddler might be able to pull the items out herself and count, and some might pull out, but need some help counting. Complete the activity at your toddler's ability level with offering some challenge to help her grow.

For Baby
As soon as baby is old enough to eat finger foods, you can put your favorite finger food in the eggs. Work in number order 1-12. Show baby the egg. Point to the number and say what it is. Then open the egg. Count each item as you take it out. Give it to baby as you count and let her eat it. You aren't going to have your baby start counting one day as a baby, but this will expose her to counting. Don't underestimate the power of simple exposure. Children are eager to learn and learn from all they experience.

If you are eager to do something with a baby who is unable to eat finger foods yet, you can still do something. You can put items in the eggs, pull them out, and count them. Keep these items out of reach of baby because they will be too small to be safe for her.

Let's Play Marbles...kind of...

I always thought of marbles as an older child's game. That is, until my 2 year old saw a picture of a marble and said "What's that?" So I proceeded to explain what it was, how the game worked, and even pulled out my bag of marbles to show her.
She was fascinated. So I changed the game a little (or a lot) and made it a 2-year-old-coordination-friendly version. I can barely flick that thing the right way, let alone show Charis how to do it.
Here's the scoop:
Ages: As soon as you are sure the first thing they won't do is try to eat it. My 12 month old is too young. At 2.5 Charis is not ready to do this without supervision. I'll let that be your call.
Supplies: marbles (I have 2 large and a bunch of small), ribbon or yarn.
Directions:
Make a circle with the yarn or ribbon. Put all the small marbles inside. We talked about inside and outside. The object of the game is to roll or bounce the large marble and try to knock as many small marbles out of the circle as possible. We worked on being gentle, aiming, and getting a little strategy going. When she rolled/tossed/bounced hers, we counted the number of marbles she knocked out each time. Then we did the same with my marbles. She wasn't interested in keeping score, but rather just seeing how many she could knock out.
Skills:
counting, shapes (circle), hand-eye coordination, concentration, taking turns, patience
This proved (for us) to be a great lesson on taking turns. She so badly wanted to keep knocking them out over and over and made a disgruntled face each time it was my turn. :)

Counting With Baby

When it comes to "teaching" your baby things like numbers and letters, there are several, simple things you can do. Here are some of my favorites.

AGE RANGE
You can start these at birth, but please don't expect to see any results for a very long time. One day, you will be reading with your 12 month old and she will tell you the letters in her alphabet book (this happened with us with Kaitlyn). It will just pop out one day and you will see your simple activities have paid off! You can continue doing these things throughout your child's life, making it harder as they get older.

SUPPLIES
Vary based on activity, but in most cases you just need you, your child, and your mouth.

BOOKS
I am always talking about how much I love books. I majored in English, so it is no surprise. When Brayden was a baby, we didn't have much money and thus didn't own a lot of books for babies, but we did have some numbers books by Baby Einstein that we enjoyed. We had the See And Spy Counting Board Book. There are lots of books out there.

On my Babywise blog, I recently asked for people to share their favorite books with me. One that was mentioned several times was Counting Kisses by Karen Kratz. That is one of the books we got for McKenna for Christmas, and we love it! She loves it and I love it. It goes from 10 to 1, with each page having kisses on a different body part (belly button, nose, eyes, hands, toes, etc.). I read it to her and kiss her cheek the number of times for each page. I say each number out loud, so I say, "one" then kiss "two" then kiss, etc.

As your baby turns into a toddler who can count, you can have her count the items on the page or each kiss instead of you.

CLIPPING FINGERNAILS
I had forgotten about this trick, but one day I decided to Google my name and found an article in Parent's magazine with this tip from me. When Brayden was a baby, he hated to hold still. In order to keep him still while clipping his fingernails, I would count each clip. For whatever reason, it worked. I do it with McKenna, and it works.

As Brayden moved into toddler years, I would have him guess how many clips a finger would take or we would challenge ourselves to clip in fewer clips per hand than last time. As he could do simple counting, I had him count each finger. As he got better, I had him count how many clips per hand.

GETTING DRESSED
Carrying the principle over, I often count as I dress and lotion baby. I will say, "put a sock on one foot, two feet." This is a double bonus because you are also naming body parts.

FEEDING
You can count bites over and over up to whatever number you think is good for your child (for babies, I wouldn't go over ten).

EVERY DAY LIFE
I think you can see the picture here and incorporate this into your every day life. My favorite way of counting with my children is to just incorporate it into every day life. Count how many stairs you go up. Count how many toys they are playing with. Count the pieces of laundry you are folding. Take the idea from Kratz and count kisses as you dress baby. Exposure teaches them day by day, little by little.

Counting Down November

My crafty mother made our family a Countdown Calendar for the month of November. A few dowel rods, felt, and creativity went a long way. I've been scouting out fun treats for the pockets for my girls and for my husband. It's amazing how exciting a Hershey's Kiss can be! (And the girls get excited, too. *wink*)

Skills: Counting (forward and backward), number recognition, days of the week, ordinal positions, calendar skills, and patience *smile*.

If you don't have time or the energy to sew (or in my case, the talent), pocket charts are available at teacher supply stores (like TAPS).

Materials: felt (lots), thread, dowel rods, ribbon, and any kind of fall decorations or embellishments she could find.

**Another fun thing to do with the calendar is for each number day, put that number of items in the pocket. For example, on November 1st, put one Reese's Cup. On November 2nd, two Dum-Dums. November 20th, twenty M&Ms. On the eighth, an 8-pack of crayons. November 25th, a quarter (for older children). My 2 year old put her quarter in her piggie bank right away.

Countdown Chain

If your preschooler is like mine, he just can't wait until XYZ happens. You might find yourself avoiding telling him about something exciting that is coming up because you know you will hear, "How many more days until XYZ?...But that's a long time!" over and over each day. Your preschooler is starting to understand time, which isn't always a good thing :)

If your toddler is like mine, she has no idea XYZ is going to happen. You want her to be able to enjoy the anticipation of something fun coming up. Anticipation is half the fun! (unless you have a preschooler asking you how much longer over and over).

The countdown chain is your answer to both issues. It gives the preschooler something tangible to look at. It also helps him more concretely understand time. It gives the toddler a reminder that there is something to be excited about.

You can use the countdown chain for anything: birthdays, holidays, start of school, the next visit to grandma's...whatever you want to countdown to.

Last fall, my mother-in-law made a countdown chain with Brayden (then 3) for Halloween. She made it in black and orange. On the orange strips, she wrote things like "Hug your mom" and "tell your dad you love him." Over the weekend, Brayden and I made a countdown chain for Halloween, and I decided to take that concept one step further.

AGE RANGE
My guess is that your child needs to be at least 18 months old to enjoy this. Kaitlyn was 18 months old last year for Halloween and just didn't care. Even now at 2.5, she isn't terribly excited over it, so don't feel bad if your child isn't as excited as you envisioned. At 3, Brayden liked it and at 4, he absolutely loves it.

SKILLS DEVELOPED

• Colors
• Sorting
• Chores
• Fine motor skills (if you let your child create the chains--you could also let your child cut out the strips of paper)
• Time concept

SUPPLIES

• Paper (whatever colors you want)
• Pen
• Scissors (or some other tool for cutting)
• Stapler (or glue)

PREP

• Cut pieces of paper one inch wide by about 6 inches long. Cut one strip of paper for each day there is until your main event (what you are counting down to).
• Gather supplies

ACTIVITY

1. Sort your paper into colors (I had Brayden sort them).
2. Decide on a category for each color of paper for an activity. We did "fun chores" for Red, "Halloween activities" for Yellow, "loving acts" for Brown, and we left Green blank so we could decide something fun that day. Since we keep Sundays for worship in our family, I put green on each Sunday.
3. Have your child help you decide things to do for each piece of paper. Write the activity on the piece of paper.
4. Arrange your papers in the order you want them in.
5. Staple or glue your first piece of paper into a circle.
6. Hook your second piece of paper through your first circle and staple or glue it closed.
7. Continue making this chain until you are done.
8. Each day, have your child remove one chain. Perform the activity listed on the paper. This is a great way for your child to count down to an activity. You can channel the excited energy into chores :)

PHOTOS

Papers sorted into color categories

Daily activities written out

Up close of daily activities

First link done

Completed chain