What's The Point

Playing counting games is something fun you can do with your child anywhere – at home, in the car, in a store, or while waiting for the doctor. Children need lots of practice counting to develop two important skills – saying numbers in the correct order and connecting each number to just one object as they count. Both skills are necessary to count accurately.

Related Game:
Count with Allie – In this online game, kids flip through a book as Allie counts the objects on each page one-by-one. The book goes from one to 20.

This Activity Will Help Your Child

• Count objects
• Collect data and make a chart
• Recognize different colors

Book Suggestions

• Feast for 10
  by Cathryn Falwell
• Tikki Tikki Tembo
  by Arlene Mosel

Supplies

• 2 sheets of paper
• 2 different colored crayons

How Do I Do It?

1. Can your child guess the favorite color of Curious George and the Man with the Yellow Hat? Yellow, that’s right!
2. Can she find 10 yellow things around the house? Tell her to count out loud as she finds them. Can she find 20?
3. What is your child’s favorite color? Can she find 10 things that are her favorite color? Can she find 20?
4. Next, give your child two sheets of paper and ask her to pick out two different colored crayons. Tell her to look around the house for objects that are those colors, and make a large dot with a crayon each time she finds an object – use one sheet of paper for one color and the other sheet for the second color.
5. When she has finished her color hunt, ask her to look at the two sheets of paper and guess which one has more dots. Now count them. Write the number of dots at the top of each sheet of paper. Which sheet has more dots? Which has fewer dots?

Take It Further

There is lots of counting that goes on in your house everyday as you go about your daily activities. Involve your child whenever possible, whether it's to count out ingredients for a recipe, count silverware and dishes when setting the table, or count the number of books she gets at the library.

You know all that spare change you have tucked away in your house? Ask your child to sort it by type of coin, count each type, and tell you how many of each type there is. Then ask her questions such as: "What type of coin do we have the most of?", "What kind do we have the least of?", and "Are there more dimes or more pennies?"