Bear Counters

Wednesday was a LONG day for us.  It was cold and rainy out and I had decided that we were just going to stay in.  Usually this is not a problem.  Olivia enjoys staying home and can entertain herself really well.  Generally speaking, she is a very easy toddler.  I know that I am blessed in this area, so I'm not complaining. :)  Wednesday was a different story.  I don't know what it was, but she just wanted my attention non stop.  Not only that, but she was whiny (not the norm) and just kept asking for things over and over and over.  I sent Michael a text at 11 o'clock listing all of the things we had already done together and complaining commenting that I was ready for a break.

So midway through the day I got the bright idea to run down to the garage and get some bear "counters" that I had.  (They aren't actually traditional bear counters.  I think they were suppose to be necklaces or something?)  I was totally flying by the seat of my pants, but I was hoping that it would amount to at least 10 to 15 minutes of play.  It did!

She saw me bring them upstairs and then watched me dump the baggie into a bowl.

She ran to the middle of the living floor and plopped herself down, knowing that it was time to do some sort of activity. :)

I gave her the bowl and just let her explore for a minute.

She picked one up and immediately said, "Teddy Bear!"

At first I was just going to see if she could count them.  

But as I sat there, I did a quick scan of the room and saw her flashcards.

I didn't want to get too complicated, so I just stuck with numbers 1 to 5 (even though she can count higher).

I was just going to put the regular number side up, but then I realized that on the back of the cards there were dots corresponding with the number.  I thought this would be GREAT for working on one to one correspondence.  I showed her how to do number one and then number two.

See the bears on the dots

After I demonstrated how to do number one and two I encouraged her to do number 3.  Instead, she decided to go straight to number 5.

I just let her go with it.

Then she went back to number 3.

Note--I like to use a glass mixing bowl for these types of activities.  The plastic bears clinking on the glass bowl adds another element of learning... even if it's just using one of the 5 senses.

As soon as she was done with number 3 she decided it was time to clean up.  I tried to encourage her to do number 4, but she wasn't having it.

That didn't end the activity though.  I started by flipping one of the cards over and talking about the number on the card.  She then flipped the other cards over and talked about the number and the objects shown.

We do work on other, more obvious, one on one correspondence.

We count the stairs as we go down them.  She counts her fingers and her toes.  But I plan on doing more activities like this with her soon.

At this point, most of the areas she is "advanced" in have to do with her (freak of nature) memory.  Memorization is great and it does help with learning.  But at some point you have to be able to apply the things you are memorizing.  That is my goal. It's great that she can count to 13 and recognize every letter of the alphabet.  Now we need to make sure she can apply those skills to other areas of learning.