How to learn numbers with a child in a playful way

Fun games – both with toys and just in everyday life – will help to captivate the child and help him to quickly and easily assimilate new information. It is only important to remember that it is not enough to teach a child to list numbers in order or to recognize them in pictures, although these skills are also necessary. The main thing is to show that there are real objects behind the numbers, and to develop the ability to count them independently.

Games will help this too. Which? By the child psychologist, LEGO® DUPLO® expert Ekaterina V. Levikova.

Already from one year old, you can start learning the world of numbers with your baby. To do this, you do not even need auxiliary materials, it is enough to study body parts in a playful way: name them, count, master the right and left sides, and so on.

It is at this time that the child learns to use his hands, feet and fingers, and it is their parents who can count, for example, while dressing. Putting on shoes, mom can say: “Where is your leg? – There she is. How many legs do you have? – Here’s one, here’s the second – two legs. Let’s put on boots on them: one boot on the first leg, the second on the second – one, two – two boots “.

Of course, while the parents will calculate everything themselves, but by the age of two, the baby will also have an interest in counting. And the constant repetition of the names of numbers by mom and dad will help you remember their pronunciation.

Gradually, you can count everything that is around. When the baby learns to pronounce the names of the numbers on his own, you can count with him the buttons on his and his clothes, trees and steps on a walk, cars of the same color that you meet along the way, and even purchases in the store.

When kids learn something new, they begin to apply it everywhere, as if trying to taste – they themselves want to use the knowledge gained, so often children repeat the same words many, many times in a row. Such zeal, of course, is best used to the advantage and, when studying the account, ask to recount everything that comes into the child’s field of vision. Just do not demand too much – let the baby first count to two, then to three, five, ten.

When studying numbers, it is very important to clearly demonstrate to the baby that each of them speaks about the amount of something. The easiest way to do this is with numbers drawn on paper and construction blocks.

So, first you can take a piece of paper, write a certain number on it, then build a turret next to it from so many cubes, then do the same with the next number. In parallel, you can imagine, together with the baby, that, for example, the number two “asks” for a house of two cubes, and five out of five. Then you can complicate the process, for example, adding, in addition to certain numbers, to each tower the required number of animal figures.

Such a game with a construction set is also an excellent training for fine motor skills, which stimulates the development of speech.

While playing with the towers from the construction set, it is easy to explain to the child the concepts of “more” and “less”, because he will see that one house turns out to be higher than the other.

When the baby is comfortable with how many objects each number corresponds to, you can ask him to match the numbers to the toys. That is, now act the other way around: put in front of the baby, say, two zebras and just two cubes and ask him to pick the desired number on the card, then put one crocodile, find a number for it and ask where there are more objects and where are fewer.

When teaching a baby, even while playing, it is important to make sure that he is interested. If he gets bored, it’s better to change occupation. Therefore, parents should come up with various and sometimes unexpected tasks for the child in order to diversify the game learning process.

For example, you can stick bright and eye-catching numbers in the apartment on various objects, right up to the closet doors and the back of the table, and ask the kid to bring there any things in the right amount. This will make it easier for him to remember how they look.

You can also take cards with numbers for a walk and to the clinic and also use them to count various objects – so the time in the queue will fly by unnoticed.

And one more tip: be sure to praise your child when he calls or does something correctly. And do not scold if this is not so, it is better to gently help him to correct himself. Positive reinforcement, encouragement with a smile and kind words always work better than negative and set the child up to enjoy the continuation of classes.