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I started introducing Sophie the numbers 1 to 5 and counting lately. I do not really know the best way to do that but I want to teach the numerals together with counting. I hope Sophie will associate numerals with the act of counting items. We started by making kites with numerals, words and counters, but Sophie was more interested in "flying" them than learning about numbers. Then I made her a "number" book, which was too plain and boring, so she used it as a jotter book.

A couple of days ago while Sophie was watching TV, I traced her feet on some drawing paper that she had previously doodled on. Then I cut them out, wrote "1" onto the left foot and pasted one star sticker on the right foot. I thought they looked alright so I squeezed some white glue on their surfaces and placed a piece of transparency over them. I repeated the process for the rest of the numbers.

So what was the inspiration for that? It was an idea from Sails Reader "How Many Toes?" by Jo Windsor. The author gives examples of animals with 2, 3, 4 and 5 toes in the simple reader. At the end of the book, she suggested a follow-up activity as shown below. I love the way such activity teaches language, maths and art at the same time.

And what do I do with the "feet"? I let Sophie walk over them and counted with her as she did it. I hope she can learn this way since she is such a playful and active little girl.

By now, Sophie can identify "3", "4" and "5" and she can count together with me. Now I have to make sure she associates the items with counting and the numerals.