Skill shelf · one number, one thing · 3 activities
Counting and Quantity
Three activities where a number has to land on an object: a bean in a cup, a bundle of ten in the hand, ten beads swapped for one bar.
Saying one, two, three up to twenty is a song, and most children learn it early. Counting is a different job. Touch one thing, say one number, stop when the things run out. The distance between the two is what these three are for.
You can see it in the first one. Twelve cups with a numeral in the bottom, a tub of butter beans, and one instruction: one bean, one number. The beans are butter beans rather than lentils on purpose, because something that can only be picked up one at a time forces one number at a time, and the cup wall makes the answer checkable by tipping it out again.
After that the number gets heavier. At five a ten stops being ten things and becomes one bundle in the hand, a hundred is a bag, and a thousand is a box carried across the room with both arms. At six, ten beads come off the snake and one ten-bar goes back on, and the moment it is working is when he stops counting a bar of five bead by bead and just says five.
The older two also sit on Patterns, Sequencing and Logic, because ten of anything trading for one of the next size up is a rule before it is a sum. Start a step below where you think your child is. The egg carton works at three if you tear the box in half and use six cups.
The three
Youngest first. Each line gives the age it suits best, how long the setup takes and whether anything has to be bought.
- 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. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
- Place Value Bead Bank Game Your child is sent to the bank for a number, comes back with loose beans, bundles of ten and bags of a hundred, and trades ten of anything for one of the next size up. 2 min · 20 min or more · household, or a bought set
- Bead Chain Addition Snake Your child lays a line of bead bars, counts off the first ten beads, swaps them for a single ten-bar, and keeps going until the snake is nothing but tens. 2 min · 20 min or more · household, or a bought set
Dried beans, a marker and an egg box cover the first one completely. The bead bars for the last can be bought as a set or threaded onto pipe cleaners in an evening.