Teaching Numbers Using Resources from Around the House

Teaching numbers in the playground:

This is a very simple and effective number activity that can be done in the garden on a path or in the school playground like this. I had collected a large basket of nuts – I love using natural resources in the classroom. As I have said before – they are all around us, they are interesting to use, can be used as an open ended, multi-purpose resource and they are free!

I drew large circles on the paving with chalk and wrote the numbers 1 to 10 in them. The children were standing on the numbers, jumping from number and number in order and counting the nuts and putting them in the corresponding circles. It was a great group activity!

Numbers @ the playdough table:

I cut out the numbers 1 to 5 from cardboard and put out various pots and pans for cooking ‘playdough dinner’. The children loved this activity! They were making playdough food to match the numbers in their pot or pan. Some of the examples were…

2 meat balls...

5 potatoes...

4 sausages...

This encouraged lots of great language. Not only maths language and counting but lots of descriptive language.

Teaching numbers @ the light table:

Children were encouraged to use the tongs to put the correct number of cotton wool balls in the cups.

These are all very cheap and effective number activities that can be incorporated into the school program or at home!