I had one thing in mind for this activity, but Grady ended up turning it into something else. He took it upon himself to add construction vehicles to move the snow.
Since he’s started to notice lower numbers, I wanted to create a simple activity for number recognition. I’ll start with number recognition before I move onto number sense. What’s the difference? Number recognition is just that: recognizing numbers. Number sense is making sense of those numbers you recognize (making sets to represent the number, how many ways can you show this number, can you put them in order, etc.) Grady can’t count sets efficiently or name numbers in order but he does recognize them. This is an activity that can strengthen number recognition.
Materials Needed:
- clear stones (to be used as “ice”)
- buckets for sorting
- tongs
- “snow”
- small construction trucks
Snow Recipe: 1:1 ratio of cornstarch and shaving cream. I used four cups each and put it in the fridge to give it a little chill.
To make the activity:
I used my silhouette machine to put the numbers 1-5 on the backs of the stones and in the bottom of the sorting bins (you could easily just use a marker). I put the stones at the bottom of the bin and covered them with the snow. I handed Grady the tongs and told him to find the numbers, name them, and put them into the matching buckets.
Grady decided he didn’t want to use the tongs. He wanted to dig for the ice with his construction trucks.
Once he sorted a few numbers and I could see he understood the concept, I walked away and let him play on his own. I don’t want to push too much on him at once, and I don’t like making him finish an activity – he doesn’t NEED to. Just show me you get it 🙂
I came back to the snow scene to see he lined the window sill with rocks and trucks. The great thing about this snow concoction is that it’s easy vacuum!
Just a note about age and appropriateness: Grady is 2.5. He’s NOT fluent in numbers. There are, however, some toddlers out there in the world that are fluent in numbers and some that don’t know what a number is. It all depends on the child! I created this activity because I noticed he was naming numbers in a book we were reading. Go with what your child knows and what is best for them!