Learn with Play at Home: egg carton

Showing posts with label egg carton. Show all posts

Sorting & Subitising with Egg Cartons. Playful Maths

Feb 1, 2013

Welcome back to the "Playful Maths" weekly series brought to you by

Learn with Play at home and The Imagination Tree

Together, let's make MATHS FUN!

........................................

Last week we brought you 2 great maths activities using egg cartons and this week we'll share 2 more before moving on to a new material next week.

Today's activity from us focuses on "Subitising/Subitizing and Sorting"

This activity also includes counting, one-to-one correspondence, fine motor skill practice and a little bit of probability/chance.

You can also use this activity to practice number recognition, number writing, graphing, addition etc.

(See the Handy Tips at the bottom)

But First- What is Subitising (Subitizing) and why is it important?

Subitising comes from the Italian Word "subito" which means "immediately/suddenly"etc.

The skill of Subitising/Subitizing refers to the ability to see a small group and know instantly how many are in that group without counting them. For example, if you rolled a 4 on a dice you would know it is 4 straight away without counting each dot.

Developing subitising skills is important because it is an early form of grouping and aids us in learning and understanding number relationships. When you see a 5 on a dice, we know it is 5 straight away because of the 4 dots that form the square and 1 extra. (It tells our brain that 4 and 1 are 5). If you saw 5 dots in a row, your brain may not be able to instantly recognise it as a collection of 5 but should be able to instantly see a group of 2 and 3 which it knows make 5.

Regular games using dice and using materials like dominos etc. will all aid your child in practicing Subitising and learning number relationships that will form the basis of their number understanding and aid in all future maths learning.

Right, now onto the activity.

Ages: 3+

(M has just turned 4. See the bottom for handy tips to Extend or Simplify to meet your child's needs)

Materials: Egg carton, die, paint (or anything you like to colour the inside) and coloured pom-poms (or any coloured manipulatives eg, counters, buttons, large beads etc)

Prepare your Egg Carton. Usually I let my daughter do the painting of things but part of the fun of this activity is the nice colourful surprise.

She was keen to get into this activity and the colourful surprise didn't disappoint

Before starting the game we had a look at the die together and talked about the numbers

Put the die inside the Egg Carton and close the lid

Give the Egg Carton a good shake!

(This is a fun part, we put it into this activity after having fun shaking an egg carton in this activity)

Put the Egg Carton down and open the lid. She couldn't wait to see which colour the die was in.

Encourage children to tell you the number on the die. See if they can tell you without counting each dot.

Count out the corresponding colour and number of pompoms.

Keep repeating so that children practice seeing and recognising the amount and then corresponding that to a group they have counted-out

I loved how here she first counted out 4 in one row and 2 in the other and then was all puzzled as to what was going on. She recounted a couple of times to make sure there was still 6 before moving them into 2 rows of 3. Is it just me that gets excited by this learning...?

And repeat...

"Another 4!" she exclaimed. (we'd had quite a few). Use a time like this to talk about guessing.. (and bringing up basic concepts of chance/probability)

I challenged her to get the dice in a PINK section..

To make things a little more interesting I gave her a pair of children's chopsticks (they're joined near the top so easier for little kids and you can get them quite inexpensively..eg $2 at Kmart).

This not only added some extra fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination but brought new life and added concentration to the same activity.

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by perhaps only including a couple of primary colours. A half dozen egg carton would probably be better for little hands as well.

- You can Extend this activity in many ways:

add an extra die in the mix to practice addition
keep a tally of the numbers that come up of each colour to see which colour got the highest overall
make a graph of the amount of times each colour in landed in... etc

- Mix it up by using this same idea to practice number recognition with a numerical dice and have the children practice writing the number each time.

- To learn new skills and to consolidate their understanding, children need to experience opportunities to practice these skills over and over again. Repeat this activity with different colours, manipulatives etc.

- You don't have to use pompoms. Whatever you have available, so long as you have at least 6 of each colour it's fine

- Don't forget to pop over to The Imagination Tree to see their Egg Carton Maths activity from this week and be sure to stop back next week as together we bring you another 2 fun Playful Maths activities... with Paper Tubes!

Happy playing,

Debs :)

Follow the entire series on our

Playful Maths Pinterest Board.

-----------------------------------

Look where else we are. Are you following along? :)

New Here? Subscribe to get all activities sent directly to you

Counting & Make 10 with Egg Cartons. Playful Maths

Jan 25, 2013

I am absolutely thrilled to be introducing you to a new weekly series called "Playful Maths"

Together with the fabulous Anna, from The Imagination Tree, we will be bringing you a whole host of

fun, hands-on maths using everyday materials.

Each week you will find a Playful Maths activity on both Learn with Play at home and The Imagination Tree so be sure to keep checking back for all our upcoming fun!

We'll also be pinning them all to our Playful Maths Pinterest Board

Together, let's make MATHS FUN!

........................................

To kick off our series we are starting with the readily available, egg carton!

Today's activity focuses on "Making 10"

(An important skill where children learn about the combinations of numbers that make up the number 10. This is helpful for mental maths & is necessary down the track to aid with addition, subtraction... etc.)

This activity includes counting, one-to-one correspondence, addition and fine motor skill practice.

We also used this activity to practice number recognition and number writing

and found it was good for subitizing/subitising as well.

Ages: 3+

(M has just turned 4. See the bottom for handy tips to Extend or Simplify to meet your child's needs)

Materials: Egg Carton (standard 1 dozen), Pompoms (or counters, buttons, playdough..etc), Scissors.

Paper and markers (optional)

Directions: Cut off 2 of the egg sections to leave 10 compartments. Provide 10 of each colour pompom.

Start by having your child count the spaces to see how many "eggs" they can fit in.

When she discovered there were 10 spaces I wrote the number 10, a dot representation of it (good for subitising & number combinations) and the word on a piece of paper to help consolidate the connections between the number and symbols.

Let children fill the egg carton with 10 pompoms.

Encourage them to use as many of each colour as they'd like.

When the carton is full, ask "How many purple pompoms are there?"

"How many yellow pompoms are there?"

How many pompoms all together?

I was going to write the number sentences for her as she made them but she insisted on doing it herself.

I provided a number chart so that she could see the number and attempt to copy it.

Then, repeat. How many different combinations can they find?

Great for fine motor skills too.

Not long after using 6 purple pompoms & 4 yellows to make 10, she ended up doing 4 purple & 6 yellows. This was amazing to her! "4 and 6 make 10 AND 6 and 4 make 10!!" she kept saying.

She then had to test if the previous combination of 1 purple and 9 yellow would also translate to 9 purple and 1 yellow. It did! She was very pleased about this discovery.

(and you can imagine my delight) :)

We kept going until she'd had enough (which was when we'd made all the combinations you can do with 2 colours). After figuring out that the end result was the same whether it was 6 and 4 or 4 and 6 and testing it again with the 1 and 9, she was convinced that she didn't need to test it out for the other combinations and she "knew" that they made 10 too.

Here she was reading her number sentences. We talked about what the + and = symbols meant as well as their technical name. As she read over her sentences (consolidating the learning), sometimes she would say 6 plus 4 equals 10 and other times, 6 and 4 make 10, or 6 and 4 is 10. I was more than happy with her demonstrating her understanding in this way.

Occasionally she did get confused about the symbols when she tried to use the technical name and would say "equals" when reading a +. Like any language, this is just something she'll get over time from repeat exposure. At this age the understanding of what it means is far more important than the correct terminology but I think there's no harm in letting them know the correct words as well.

Her finished Make 10, number sentences. (she asked me to write a few of the numbers)

This to her is so much more valuable then any number chart I could buy her.

Why? Because SHE made it. It makes sense to her.

(she's even realised that by writing her 0 so close to the 1 she is confusing herself when reading it as it looks like a backwards 9 (or a P) haha)

I'm a visual person so couldn't help myself making this little number 10 representation picture.

(and sneakily.. there's 100 there too)

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by providing the carton and manipulatives for kids to play around with and leave out the number writing. You could write the numbers for your child or could even provide number stickers or magnetic numbers for them to find the corresponding number to amount.

- Extend this activity by challenging children to find every combination they can with 2 colours. Have them guess before making. Children can also make their own number 10 representation poster.

Try adding an extra colour. What combinations can be made then?

- Mix it up by using playdough to mold egg shapes instead of using pompoms or buttons etc

- You don't have to use pompoms. Whatever you have available, so long as you have at least 10 of each colour, is fine!

- Here is a previous fun maths activity we shared using Egg Cartons. Click the picture to go to the post.

Happy playing,

Debs :)

-----------------------------------

Look where else we are. Are you following along? :)

New Here? Subscribe to get all activities sent directly to you

Egg Carton Maths. Toddlers to School Age

Oct 5, 2012

Here I'll show you a basic Maths game that's easy to set up and can be easily simplified and extended to suit your child's needs.

Use this fun game to help with basic number recognition, number matching, counting, one-to-one correspondence, building, representation, addition, subtraction and more.

Ages- 2-6+

(M is 3.5 and currently working on teen numbers. See the bottom of the post for Handy Tips to help simplify or extend to meet your child's needs)

Materials: Empty Egg Carton, Sticker Dots, Marker, Pompom (or counter/paperclip etc), blocks(counters)

Write numbers in each space of the egg carton (we focused on teen numbers)

Write the same numbers on sticker dots

Have your child find and match the corresponding numbers. This ensures your child is familiar with all the numbers before starting the game as well as working on their matching skills, fine motor skills and number recognition.

When all the stickers are in, pop the pompom (or whatever you're using) and close the lid

And..... SHAKE! :)

Whatever the pompom lands on, have your child identify and make that number using and counting their blocks.

The number 17. Talk about the number. Look at the visual representation.

Go again!

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by focusing on single numbers. You could use a half sized egg carton (the one pictured was painted by my daughter). Have your child decorate their egg carton to make it a special number shaker. If you wish, leave out the building of the visual representation of the number and just focus on the number recognition.

- Extend this activity by focusing on higher numbers or by putting in 2 pompoms (shakers) and having your child add the 2 numbers together, find the difference between the 2 numbers, subtract the lower number from the higher number, identify lower or higher, find and name a number between the 2 numbers etc.

- Mix it up by using this same method to learn letters, sight words etc.

- Instead of a pompom, something that allows children to see the number underneath still (like a paperclip) could be a good alternative.

- Listen to your child talk as they go through their experiences. This will help you determine where they are at with their learning, knowledge and understanding and help you to develop the activity (or future activities) to their level and interests. If they are breezing through single numbers then consider trying teen numbers and so on.

- Ensuring that there are some numbers that your child is already familiar with will help them feel more confident about the game and allow them to experience successes during the game.

Looking for more fun NUMBER activities for kids?

Q-Tip Painting. Learning Numbers

Printable Duplo Number Cards

Learning Numbers. Pretend Shop

Shopping Trip Number Hunt

Catalogue Number Find

Happy playing,
Debs :)

New Here? Subscribe to get all activities sent directly to you