Maths Activities - Number recognition

[hopeytg]

Following on from Panders fantastic thread on shapes - I am looking for ideas to help our children with number recognition - seems to be a real struggle for this cohort. They can count but when we try recognition they don't have a clue - we have tried lots of games, taking things right back to basics but some are just not 'getting it' at all.

There were some lovely ideas shared on shapes which I have pinched so I know you lovely people will have some ideas for my numbers

[Panders]

Well last week we played 10 green bottles (-another Orchard games ) and one of the boys who is fairly ok with number sequence, not necessarily with number recognition began silly counting as he called it which led way to a treasure hunt game of numbers for which we used our large foam sparkly numbers from Hobbycraft. when they found a number they had to bring it back to the table where they worked out its position in the number line they were creating. we also play Kim's game with these sparkly numbers. I also have the Numtums laminated for a washing line game. washing tablet net bags with luggage labels attached with numbers on to fill with required amounts of objects then they are hung up on cup hooks, hopefully in sequence but doesn't particularly matter. I also have a number of little bags, boxes, purses anything which engages their attention really and loads of little resources to fill them with, when they have, 3 key rings in a purse they find the matching numeral card and so on. Older children have made doors from cardboard and put their house number on, when you open the door there are some of our old photos cut up with friends they have invited back to play at their house. we have the big foam number jigsaw outside and hide those numbers around the garden for them to find. Older ones also play bingo up to 10 or 20. we have cars or animals with numbers stuck to them in a box of shredded paper they pull out an object they have found and match it to a number on a grid we have made , say a parking space or pen at the zoo. You could make your own number track games too, we used to do those haven't for ages, but you can make a number track to suit your purposes and use numbered dice rather than spotty ones for the children to play games we covered some wooden cube shapes with stickers we could number so we have sets of 1-3 4-6 etc.. As a 5 minute filler game I some times use our huge dice one has spots the other numbers on it, I flip the dice like a one armed bandit in my hands and ask the children if the amount of spots matches the numeral.

 

above all I suppose we point out numbers in the environment and say what they are all the time

[Lumpty]

Have you heard of the Number Puppies? We bought them in last year and my children love them! Each puppy is a different colour and has a designated number and shape. There is a story for each story that focuses on the favourite shape and number for each puppy. The children love feeding the puppies the right number of bones, ordering them on their number mats, playing number puppy hide and seek- they love them! Other ideas for ordering numbers, I have a frog that likes to eat numbers in the right order, an astronaut that likes us to the order his count up/ count down cards and a naughty dragon that steals a different number from our number line each day- that the children have to work out! My children also like ordering giant numbers in a large circle- one child orders them while the others count how fast they are. Hope these ideas are useful :-)

[hopeytg]

thank you so much for these amazing ideas.

[lashes2508]

I did a spontaneous activity , my better ones usually are as my colleagues can vouch for , even if they find it a little frustrating and inspiring too. We started with large laminated numbers and the children had to arrange themselves inthe correct order, we have some whose number recognition is great and others who struggle , they helped each other to recognise number first and then get in order, great team working. We then arranged numbers at end of hall and hid corresponding numbers in bricks , they took turns to open bricks call out number and run and place on laminated number. ' quick quick open the brick' became a race and the children loved it .