Egg Carton Counting Grid

Your child reads the number written in the bottom of an egg carton cup and drops in exactly that many beans, one at a time, twelve cups in a row.

Age: 3 to 5, best at 4
Setup: 15 min, once
Play: 10 to 20 min
Materials: Household only
Mess: None
You: Set it up, then leave

Activity KG-A057

An egg box, a marker and a cupful of butter beans. The cup walls are what make the count checkable

4 year olds Numbers, Shapes and Thinking Counting and Quantity Pincer Grip and Small Precision Concentration Independence Patience Learning That Does Not Feel Like School No Mess Costs Nothing Quiet Independent Play Travel and Waiting Rooms Kitchen and Pantry Items Jars, Boxes and Containers Basic Art Supplies

What you need

One egg box, one marker and whatever dried pulse is in the cupboard. The only choice that changes anything is the size of the counter, because a four year old thumb and a lentil are not a good match.

A cardboard egg box, twelve cupsx1 Or: a six-cup box, which is the better first one. Or a bun tin with numbers on paper circles in the bottom. Cardboard takes permanent marker and keeps it. Polystyrene and clear plastic boxes rub off within a week, so those want small round stickers or paper circles taped into the cups instead.
Dried butter beans, haricot beans or chickpeasabout 150 Or: buttons about 2 cm across. Or dried pasta shells. Or 1p coins. A butter bean is 1.5 to 2 cm and sits between a thumb and one finger without being fiddly. Lentils and rice are too small to pick up one at a time, and one at a time is the entire point. Twelve cups need 78 beans, so 150 in the tub means running out is never what ends a sitting.
A permanent markerx1 Or: a biro pressed firmly. Or printed numbers cut out and glued in. Write the numeral big, in the bottom of the cup, not on the rim. A number on the rim disappears under the child's hand exactly when it is being read.
A small bowl or tub for the loose beansx1 Or: the lid of the egg box itself, which is already attached. Beans loose on the table roll off it, and a chase across the floor ends the run. The lid is the neatest answer because it folds back down and the whole thing goes on a shelf or in a bag.

How to set it up

Write 1 to 12 in permanent marker in the bottom of each cup, big enough to read past a hand.6 min
Fold the lid back and tip a cupful of beans into it, or into a small bowl beside the box.1 min
Fill cup 1 and cup 2 yourself, saying one number per bean as it lands.1 min
Slide the whole box across and sit back without saying which cup comes next.10 sec

What to say and what to do

Say

One bean, one number.
Tip that cup out and count it again.
For a first go, tear the box in half and use six cups. Twelve is a long way at four.

Say the numbers with the beans, not ahead of them. A four year old who hears counting running ahead of the hand copies the running ahead.
Point at the numeral rather than saying it. Reading the digit is half of what this is, and it stops happening the moment you read it aloud for him.
Leave it made up on a shelf with the lid shut. An egg box that is already numbered gets taken down again; one that has to be rebuilt does not.

Let be

Cups done out of order. Starting at 12 because 12 is the big one is a reasonable plan.
A count that comes out at seven in a cup marked eight. She will find it on the recount, or she will not, and both are fine at four.
Beans arranged into a picture in the lid halfway through. The counting comes back on its own, usually within a minute.

What it looks like when it is working

The number word arrives as the bean hits the bottom of the cup, not before it.
He tips a cup back out and recounts it without being asked.
The high cups stop being filled by handful and start being filled one bean at a time.
She closes the lid and carries the box to the shelf, which is her deciding it is a thing rather than a mess.

What to expect at each age

At three

Counts to about five accurately while moving objects, and reads 1, 2 and 3 as written numerals. Fills the higher cups by the handful, because the digit is not yet a number to him.

Reading the numerals past five is what arrives around four, and it is the reading rather than the counting that is the later half of this.

Lasts 5 to 10 minutes

At four

Reads all twelve numerals and counts accurately to about ten while dropping beans in. Loses track somewhere in 11 and 12, and usually knows that she has.

Checking a count back, and finding the missing one rather than starting the cup again, comes around five.

Lasts 10 to 20 minutes

At five

Does all twelve cups without a miscount and starts noticing that each cup holds one more than the one before it. Sets himself rules, like doing the even ones first.

Adding two cups together, and the idea that twelve is six and six, arrives at six and turns this into a different activity.

Lasts 15 to 25 minutes

When it goes sideways

Each of these is the box telling you something about the level it is set at, and each takes under a minute to change.

She counts out loud much faster than she drops

Reciting numbers and moving objects are two separate rhythms at four, and the mouth is the faster one. The recited count is fine; it is the joining up that is being built.

Ask her to say the number as the bean hits the bottom, so the sound waits for the drop. Bigger counters help too, because a butter bean takes longer to place than a chickpea.

He fills every cup with a handful

The numerals are not being read yet, so the box is a set of containers rather than a set of instructions.

Draw the matching number of dots in a row under each numeral. The dots can be counted onto directly, and the digit above them gets learnt on the way past.

It falls apart around cup eight or nine

The counting is not the part that failed. Keeping track of which beans have already been counted is, and eight loose beans in a cup all look alike.

Show him laying them in a line along the table first, then sweeping the line into the cup. A line can be checked; a pile cannot.

It is over in four minutes

Six cups is twenty-one beans, and twenty-one beans is genuinely the whole activity.

Open the second half of the box. Twelve cups is seventy-eight beans and roughly triples the sitting without changing anything else.

Making it harder

Four rungs on the same egg box. The only thing that ever gets added is a marker pen.

typically 3

Six cups, numbers with dots

Ready when: This is where everybody starts.
What changes: Half a box, 1 to 6, and a row of dots drawn under each numeral.
What is new: One bean for one number word, which is the foundation the rest of this stands on.

typically 4

Twelve cups, numerals only

Ready when: She fills the six-cup box correctly most times, looking at the dots.
What changes: The dots come off, or a second box is made without them, and all twelve cups are in play.
What is new: Reading a digit with nothing underneath it to help.

typically 4 to 5

Shuffled number cards

Ready when: He reads all twelve numerals without hesitating.
What changes: Twelve small cards with the numbers on, shuffled and dropped one per cup, so the order is different every time.
What is new: The number has to be read rather than remembered from where the cup sits.

typically 5 to 6

Zero, and which cup has more

Ready when: She does a full shuffled box without a miscount.
What changes: Add a card with 0 on it, and start asking which of two cups has more and by how many.
What is new: Comparing quantities instead of making them, and an empty cup that is correct, which is a genuinely new idea at five.

Stop when the tub is empty rather than when the box is full. Beans counted back into the lid at the end is its own small piece of counting, and it is the bit that means the box is ready tomorrow.

How to keep it safe

Dried beans are small, and that is the only thing here that needs a decision.

This one is for a child who has stopped putting things in her mouth. If yours still does, or if there is a younger one at the table, use 2 cm buttons or jumbo pasta shells and keep everything else the same.
Sit at the table for the first couple of sittings, mostly so you can see how the counting is going.
Close the lid and put the box up on a shelf between sittings if there is a crawling baby in the house.

Small parts From 3 Travels well

Why this helps

From the guide The claims here follow our guide on how patience actually develops.

Counting out loud and counting things are two different skills, and most four year olds have the first one long before the second. The gap shows up as a child who can recite to twenty and still hands you five objects when you ask for three. What closes it is one object moving for one number word, over and over, and the cup wall in an egg box is what makes that possible: a bean that lands in cup seven cannot roll into cup eight, so the count stays put long enough to be checked.

The second thing is the numeral itself. A written 8 means nothing until it has been eight of something, several hundred times. Here the digit sits at the bottom of the cup where the beans are about to go, so reading it and making it are the same movement rather than two lessons. That is also why the marker goes in the bottom rather than on the rim.

Skill practised: one object for one number word, and the digit that sets it

This is not early maths teaching. A four year old fills an egg box because filling things up to a line is satisfying, and the counting rides along with it.

One a week, at your child's age

We publish one new activity a week at each age, in exactly this format. The bit worth seeing rather than reading here is the pace: a bean landing, then the number, then the next bean.

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Questions parents ask

What should I use instead of beans?

Anything about the size of a butter bean that a thumb and finger can hold one at a time. Buttons, dried pasta shells, 1p coins, small pebbles from the garden and wooden beads all work. Skip lentils, rice and small seeds, because they cannot be picked up singly and the whole activity depends on that.

Should the numbers be 1 to 12 or 0 to 11?

Start at 1. Zero is a real idea and worth adding, but it lands much better at five as a surprise card than as the first cup in the box. When you do add it, write it on a loose card rather than in a cup, so an empty cup can be seen to be correct.

My four year old does not read the numbers at all. What now?

Draw a row of dots under each numeral and let the dots do the work. Counting beans onto dots is a complete activity on its own, and the digit above them gets picked up over a few weeks of looking at it in the same place. Most children go the same way round: quantity first, symbol after.

How long does one box last?

Months, if you change one thing at a time. Dots first, then bare numerals, then shuffled cards, then zero and comparisons. The box itself usually gives out before the interest does, and the numbers take four minutes to write on a new one.