Much like the “Bucket Sorter” the Soft House is designed so that infants and toddlers can put things inside and take things out. I have seen these with all sorts of themes, but my absolute favorite was a “Noah’s Ark” soft house that was filled with pairs of animals. My first son’s name is Noah […]
My friend Kate posted this on her fb page over the weekend and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how much my boys would have LOVED this game when they were little. First, they were cuckoo for Legos. Second, the addition of a “game” dimension to an all-time favorite, would have made them […]
As we continue to explore the special relationship between infants and caregivers in child care, I thought we could look at consistency as the foundation on which all mathematical concepts are built for our youngest children. If you think about it, a baby’s day is broken down into fairly simply parts. There is eating, there […]
Did you know that the Early Math Counts site has dozens of math lessons specifically written for infants? It does. Infants experience mathematical concepts through their daily interactions and schedules. Infant teachers know that the consistency of care they provide for their babies creates the foundation for building trust. It also develops a strong foundation […]
As the days unfold during the first year of life, infants repeatedly experience personal care routines that will set the foundation for the development of their first mathematical understandings. Personal care routines refer to the everyday caretaking of the infant, such as feeding, diapering, and sleeping sequences. Each personal care routine has its own rhythm […]
I am not a big fan of worksheets, but some kids really love them. This site has several nice ones that you can print and make available for children who want to work on them. Some may be too sophisticated for preschool-aged children, but others might be just right. Take a stroll through the site […]
On Monday, I wrote about cash registers as a classroom tool that can support early money concepts. Cash registers, themselves, are not exactly math manipulatives, but they can be used to support the use of math manipulatives like money. Using the cash register in the house keeping area makes a lot of sense if you […]
Toy cash registers have come a long way since my children were little. Ours had buttons with numbers and a big button that opened the drawer. That was all. Inside, there was space for the pretend money. Funnily enough, I actually remember that the money that came with the register didn’t quite fit in the […]
Children love money. They love pretend money. The love spending money. They often love going shopping, and spending money. My children could sit for hours playing with my wallet, organizing the credit cards, IDs, and money. I think part of this fascination is that money is fundamentally a grown-up possession, and a grown-up activity. They […]
This game is a nice way to continue supporting children as they learn to distinguish between the different kinds of coins we use everyday. Using the mouse, children sort the coins into jars. Each jar has a picture of the coin (a quarter, nickel, dime, or penny) on the front. This visual clue is important, […]