School Time 9/2 - Numbers

I asked Becca if she wanted to play some numbers "games" today, she said yes. I told Becca I had no idea what numbers she knew or if she knew how to count, so I wanted to see if she could show me what she already knew. I didn't have a specific plan in mind, so I was just trying lots of different things to see what stuck.

First we stacked (and counted) towers of six blocks and then knocked them over a couple times (I would let her try to knock them over, then asked if she wanted help and if she said yes then I'd hold her arm above her wrist and help her get her hand in a position to flip or grab the tower with her wrist). Then I got out a board with a "1", "2" and "4" on it. I asked Becca if she knew which one was a "2" and she identified it correctly. She also did the "4", but then wouldn't identify the "1". She wouldn't try at all, making me wonder if she was just uninterested because it was too obvious. We practiced drawing each of the numbers with her finger and she seemed to like that.

I asked her if she wanted to do "math" instead of just numbers and she said yes very quickly. I made two stacks of two blocks each and we talked about 2 plus 2. I asked Becca what 2 plus 2 was, or how many blocks there were. She picked "2", so we talked about how there were two blocks in each stack and there were two stacks, and when we counted how many total blocks there were we counted four.

After that I told her we were going to do a really easy one. I placed one block in front of her and asked how many blocks there were. She refused to answer.

Then I asked Becca if she wanted to count something different. I got 4 tomatoes and asked Becca if there were 6 tomatoes there or 4 tomatoes. She picked six, so we counted to make sure and we only counted 4. I asked Becca if she wanted to make towers out of tomatoes instead of just counting them, and she said yes. I asked her if she wanted to make a tower of 1 tomato or 4 tomatoes. She picked 4, so we made a tower out of 4 tomatoes while counting. Then I asked if she wanted to make a tower of 2 tomatoes or 6 tomatoes. She picked 6, but so we stacked up 6 tomatoes (I had to hold them to keep them up). Then we went back to blocks. I asked Becca if she wanted to make a tower of 2 blocks or 4 blocks. She picked 4 so we stacked up 4 blocks, showing the number each time we added a block like The Count from Sesame Street. On the fourth block I asked her if it was number 4 or number 6 and she wouldn't answer, then I think she picked 6. We counted 4 blocks and I asked if she wanted to do 6 instead and she said no so we left if.

Last I put the numbers 1-6 in order and we traced them all with Becca's finger. She always says yes very quickly when I asked her about tracing the numbers. I asked if she wanted to try putting them in order after I mix them up and she said yes. I asked her which number came first and she picked 1. She picked 2 and 3 very quickly as well. She had trouble with coughing after that and wouldn't pick another number, so I told her the next number was 4 and she picked it out herself. Picking between 5 and 6 was hard for her, she didn't want to pick for a while, but eventually she did pick 5 without me saying the number five, then we added six and counted them again.

After that I said we could be done, and asked Becca if she wanted to knock down some towers again. She said no, so I said I was going to go get a game for us to play. I built a tower of blocks with a tomato on top and left it while I went to go get a game. She knocked it over probably ten seconds later.

After that we played Quirkle for a little while, and Becca would pick which sets to play when it was her turn (i.e. all the blue tiles, all the star tiles, all the diamond tiles). She got tired of that quickly and I asked if wanted to go outside instead. She said yes.