C likes to move. I mean this kid is happiest when running, jumping, climbing or bouncing. I’ve tried numerous times to do various counting activities with him but to be honest he just doesn’t have all that much interest in sitting down, or sitting still for that length of time. It will come, but in the meantime, I stumbled across something that works for both of us.
Today I’m over at Gummy Lump sharing an Indoor Obstacle Course. It was loads of fun so be sure you check it out (by clicking on the link) when you are done reading this post. What I didn’t expect to come out of that activity was a great little number lesson for Mr. C by way of the hopscotch that we used as part of our obstacle course.
Right away he recognized that the pieces were numbered and took an interest in how they fit together. We made putting the hopscotch together a game. I would ask him for a particular numbered piece and he would hand it to me (ie. basically pick up pieces and guess until he found the right one). Still, he was interested and trying. He was so curious! He would point to a tile and ask “what’s that number?” so we would just point and name them and practice counting the numbers in order as we hopped along the tiles.
He’s too young to get the gist of how you actually play hopscotch but he loved the challenge of hopping on any given number that I called out. He would rarely get it right but he loved trying. It got him moving and definitely increased his awareness of and interest in numbers.
My oldest played a lot of hopscotch when he was younger but I never thought of it in terms of being such a good tool for learning numbers.
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