Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Recognizing 11-20

I taught my daughter to count 1-20 using the Signing Time Counting Time DVD, and the we solidified it by counting as we would swing at the park.  And she learned to recognize visually the numbers 1-10 using her little number board books.  But for the longest time I couldn't figure out a way to get her to recognize 11-20.  Nothing I tried worked.  But this past week I had a breakthrough.  Not that the idea was incredibly brilliant - it is kind of mundane actually - but I was startled at how well it worked.

I cut a few regular sheets of computer paper into small flash card size rectangles.  Then I got out her little colored pencils.  She would choose a color and hand me the pencil, and I would write a number on one of the rectangles.  We did them in order, 1-20.  She paid almost no attention to the numbers as I wrote them after awhile, and she got bored half way through it (which has been the problem - her attention span won't last past 10).  

BUT, then we put TAPE (and she helped) on the back of the rectangle with the number 1 on it, and we taped it to her chest of drawers.  Then we put tape on number 2, and put it next to number 1.  After around number 10, she started rocking her teddy bear.  So I suggested letting the teddy bear put the number 11 up on the chest of drawers.  She thought that was a fun idea, and so she helped her teddy bear do it.  We put the 11 directly under the number 1, and I showed her again "11 is a one with a one in front of it."  Then teddy bear put up number 12 under number 2, and I showed her "12 is a two with a one in front of it."  I pointed the teddy bear's paw - "2" and "12," "2" and "12," "2" and "12."  My daughter's little head bobbed up and down as she followed the paw - it was adorable.  This worked all the way through 18, by which time she was rocking the teddy bear again.

I didn't know whether or not she had understood what we did.  She went back to the numbers again after a little while and started ripping them off the chest.  But then - the magic of these moments! - she ran up to me with a little rectangle, saying, "Mommy!  14 fell down!"  And sure enough, there in her hand was "14."  =)  

3 comments:

~Babychaser~ said...

I can't believe she's talking enough to tell you 14 fell down... let alone talking! My little guy is still in rudimentary speech... saying words like doggy and ewwww and more and buuuu (with of course is bug). He has an ever growing vocabulary of words, but isn't yet doing sentences. :) Great idea with the numbers though! I'll have to remember that!

klh said...

Yeah, she talks really well. I hear girls tend to talk earlier than boys. Its incredibly fun to hear what is going on in her one year old little brain. She's been telling us stories, and she repeats them a lot. Like, the other night she told us at least 40 times "I had a cookie, and I took just a couple bites - just a couple of bites! - and I made a cross!" (it was a circular cookie and she had bitten 4 corners, and her dad noticed it looked like a cross). Another favorite is, "I threw the blue ball into the water. All gone! Daddy shared the pink ball." (at putt-putt she threw dad's ball, which was blue, into a waterfall and so we had to share my pink ball for the rest of the game).

Queen of Carrots said...

I should do this with my 3 and 4 year old. They have some familiarity with the higher numbers, and have just about got them down in counting, but they don't recognize them all yet. And they would LOVE anything to do with tape. :-)