A Hands-On Way to Learn Numbers Using Rocks
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Children have a natural tendency to engage with nature and are designed to learn through the exploration of the world. They have recently arrived on our marvelous and fascinating planet, and nature is pretty amazing and unfathomable. Using natural elements to promote learning is great because they are free, interesting to children, and sustainable for our planet.
These number rocks are a cool way to strengthen children’s numeracy skills (counting, matching, one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, amount, and number order).
Hands-On Ways to Learn Numbers with Rocks
What you need:
- Ten rocks
- White paint
- A black pen
- A collection of leaves, seeds, and sticks (whatever you can find).
What to do:
- Paint the rocks with the white paint and wait for them to dry.
- Put one dot on one rock and write the number one on the back of the rock. Write the number ‘2’ on the next rock, adding two dots, and so on until you have done ten rocks. If your children are up to it, make a rock with a plus sign on and a rock with a minus sign.
- Go on a ‘treasure hunt’ and pick up lots of leaves, flowers, seeds, and sticks.
Learning Ideas for This Activity
- Match each stone with the same number of natural items.
- Put the rocks in a bag. Take turns picking a rock out of the bag and finding the corresponding number of items.
- Sort the natural items into groups and then find the rock whose number corresponds with each group.
- Order the rocks from one to ten or ten to one.
- Play a game. The first player picks a rock; the second player finds the leaves or sticks to match the number and then picks another number. The next player finds the corresponding seeds to match the second rock. Add the two numbers together and count all the items to see what the answer is.
- Sit the rocks in a basket in your child’s room so that they can include them in their play! You might even stick craft eyes on them and give each one a name. Your child might end up inventing new things to do with them.
Author Bio: Bridget is a passionate early childhood education manager, teacher, and advocate. She is the author of Road No Good, runner-up in the Finch Memoir Prize 2016, and available in bookstores from 1st February 2017. Bridget is a busy mother of two children, a one-year-old and a three-year-old.
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Heather Greutman, COTA
Heather Greutman is a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant with experience in school-based OT services for preschool through high school. She uses her background to share child development tips, tools, and strategies for parents, educators, and therapists. She is the author of many ebooks including The Basics of Fine Motor Skills, and Basics of Pre-Writing Skills, and co-author of Sensory Processing Explained: A Handbook for Parents and Educators.