Welcome to the classroom! We love to play, learn, create and sing together in the classroom, and we’d like to encourage our classroom friends to keep learning and playing at home once Caitie’s Classroom is over. We’ve put together activities and resources so the playing, learning, creating and singing doesn’t have to stop once Caitie says goodbye. Try these out at home or in your own classroom, and have fun!
In this episode of Caitie’s Classroom, we are doing lots of counting! There are lots of creative and fun ways to practice counting and we explore a number of them in this episode. You can use movement, art and role play all to practice counting! Read on for ideas and tips on how to recreate our counting activities at home or in the classroom and more counting fun!
Roll The Dice And Move!
This is a super fun movement activity to practice counting and is easily recreated at home in a few different ways.
- Decide on a moment to do, and roll a dice! Count the number of dots you rolled, and do the movement that number of times, just like we did in the classroom!
- Write down a bunch of different movements you can do and put them in a hat or a bowl. Pull a piece of paper out of the hat to decide what movement to do. Here are the movements we did in the classroom plus some more ideas to get you started on ideas: clap, jump, spin, blink, blow a kiss, touch your nose, wink, high five, hop, jumping jacks, squat, point your toe, pat your head, and wave!
- To count higher than six, try writing down bigger numbers on pieces of paper and placing them in a hat or bowl to select as well. You can also use two or three dice for bigger numbers and possible simple addition practice!
- For more fun and counting practice with dice, try our Homemade Snakes and Ladders Game!
Seven Steps
Seven Steps is a great song to practice counting to seven, and to get some movement in.
- Move along as you sing, taking steps for each number, forward and backwards!
- Try other movements to the song, like jumping!
- For more ideas on how to use Seven Steps, watch our How To Teach series on Seven Steps.
- Follow along with the animated music video.
Counting With Finger Paints
Counting is even more fun with finger paints! Try it yourself!
- Place a photo of your little one on one side of a large piece of paper. On the other side, draw something fun that your child likes. Maybe a dinosaur or an ice cream cone! Ask your little one how many finger steps they think it will take to get to the other side. Then have them make the finger steps with finger paint as they count. They can draw the number in finger paint too! Try big steps and little steps, always making a guess before counting.
- Try counting real steps! See how long it takes to go from one place to another. It’s fun to count how many steps it takes to go somewhere you often go. Perhaps from the bathroom sink to your bedroom. Or from your front door to the park! Guess how many steps it will take, and then count as you go. Try big steps and little steps, too!
Tissue Box Monster
We use our tissue box monster to do some role playing and counting practice. Our tissue box monster is very hungry! How many poms poms will your tissue box monster eat?
- Make your own tissue box monster, decorated any way you like!
- We used pom pom to feed the monster in the classroom, but tissue box monsters will eat anything that will fit in their mouths! Using colorful things is a great opportunity to also practice colors.
- A grown up can pretend to be the monster and your little one can feed the monster, making sure to give them the right amount. Little ones might also like to pretend to be the monster and ask for a certain number of pieces, then feed the monster together as you count.
- See how much your monster can eat, and how high you can count! Feed the monster until he is full!
- You can also roll a dice or pick a number from a hat to select a random number for the monster.
We hope you have fun singing, playing, learning, and creating! We love to see photos of our friends having fun in the classroom and of their wonderful creations! You can share them with us a few different ways:
