Tag Archives: counting

Using a Calendar with Preschoolers

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Using a calender at home was something I debated with. Time passing is such as abstract concept for preschoolers. Daisy tends to think of days as either an at home day or a day care day.

We use an Animal Friends Yearly Calendar and refer to it at least weekly.

I did put all the numbers in once and then decided just to do weekends and special occasions. At the beginning of the month we look at our event calender and see when we have important days in the coming month. These may be birthdays, mother’s day, holidays or special days at daycare.

l help Daisy to add the dates for Saturdays and Sundays and then we pick out triangles for special days. The emphasis is on number recognition and celebrating special days rather than remembering what date it is.

Inserting the numbers and triangles requires fine motor skills.

The days are changed when we remember. I struggled with this and asked Daisy to do it everyday for a while. The task then became a chore rather than fun. Now we do it when we remember and the emphasis is on what day today is, what day came before and what day will be next. The discussion is about what is happening today or the next day. This tends to be used when there is something exciting coming up.

Looking outside at the weather is always exciting and helps us to plan activities for the day.

The season helps us remember to change our book collection.

I am a book lover and have a rather huge collection of children’s books. They are now neatly organized in seasonal bankers boxes and rotated through the year. A new season means exciting new books to explore.

Here are some links for Calendar ideas:

Calendar Time for Young Children

Activities for Preschool Calendars

Morning Greeting and Calendar and Weather Time in Preschool

Time, clocks and calendar related activities

Daily Calendar Math

Days of Celebration

Do you have a formal Calender time?


Super Sorting Pie Fun

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We have done quite a bit of sorting  but this pie was just too cute not to try. I was hoping it would extend her sorting capabilities and it did!

She loved the tweezers. I set up the pie shell with an activity card in the bottom and Daisy played and sorted the fruit into the correct sections. She started off using the tweezers with a fist grip and changed to the pincer grip without any interference from me..yeah!

This Super Sorting Pie comes with 3 double sided activity cards, 60 fruit counters, 2 Jumbo tweezers and an activity guide. Honestly, I ignored the guide until I sat down to write this post because it was so self explanatory.

Daisy loves playing with this pie while in her kitchen. We keep it out of Rose’s reach just because she is at that wonderful dumping stage. When she sees it out… it ends up on the floor. It has become one of those go to activities when Daisy wants some time by herself.

Here she is counting and organizing, the numbers 5-10 are on the other side of this activity card. The other activity cards include, sorting by colour and fruit and sorting by fruit. Daisy sorts by one type and them reorganizes and starts again using another system. The abundance of fruit allows her to sort out of the pie at the same time. You can see here she does not always choose to use the tweezers.

The activity guide suggests many different activities including:

  • Match Me- match a selected fruit and line up the pairs
  • Fruit Picking Fun- say the name of a fruit and colour, asking the children to pick out the fruit using tweezers
  • Fruit Patterns- make a pattern and ask the children to repeat it
  • What Comes Next?- make a pattern, say it out loud and ask the children to say “what comes next?”
  • One of these Things is Not Like the Others- pick three fruits that are alike and one that is different and ask the children to find the one that is different and explain why.
  • Count Your Colours- Say a number and a colour and ask the children to pick those fruits out of the pie and count them .

If you would like a great sorting game I would recommend this Super Sorting Pie. It is versatile and great value!

Any one for fruit pie?

Writing Numbers 1-12 assessment and teaching

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These are the eyes my daughter has after lunch when she says “Can we do an activity?” She means a mini lesson. She doesn’t mean me giving her something to do … she wants to learn. Coming from teaching grade 6 and having to do everything (within my sometimes magical powers) to make them excited about learning, this is a little shocking and overwhelming at times. This lesson was the perfect fit for her; a challenge, learning something new and it involves movement.

I noticed last week that Daisy was forming some of her numbers incorrectly. I had not taught her to write numbers, daycare had. I try to compliment what she learns at daycare. She attends 3 days a week, while I work and loves learning in the preschool room. It amazes me what she picks up from her wonderful teachers and this often prompts our lessons at home.

A huge advantage of my job is getting to test educational products. Over the next few months I will be testing and photographing lots of the great things we sell at Quality Classrooms. I was asked to photograph these  Motor Numbers and Ten Frames. Planning the assessment around these two great products makes perfect sense. I love diagnostic teaching so I assessed number recognition as I taught correct number formation.

We started with zero.

Daisy’s first reaction to the Motor Numbers was excitement. She began making the zero. I checked she was moving in the correct direction. We then made the number larger in the air, again to reinforce directionality.

Finally,  writing practice.

We moved through the numbers 0-10 in this order:

  1. Move the button on the Motor Number (emphasize start and finish positions)
  2. Air draw the number, big.
  3. Use the Ten Frame to check number counting recognition.
  4. Write the number as many times as wanted.
  5. Show the number with fingers.

High 4!

Daisy whizzed through this activity so we made a numbers 1-12 book. She counted and added the corresponding number of stickers. On the other side I drew the number and added arrows to reminder her how to write it.