Number 12

1. We had the first introduction to number 12 in breakfast. When we prepared Noarai’s cereals we counted 12 spoons and we repeated the number several times. 2. At learning time we started with sticks, she loves them and as you see she is getting pretty good at grabbing them all by herself. I instructed her to put them inside the number. And as she was doing this I was repeating over and over the new number “that is number twelve, 1 and 2 together is twelve, eleven and twelve…” When she was all done with sticks I gave her the crayons and she did a really good painting but it was hard to see the number. So when she finished it I would cut them and would stick them on a paper. Finally we stuck it on the learning poster saying “bye-bye eleven” and “Hello twelve”.

3. I printed this caterpillar from http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2009/10/prek-letter-c.html . I put numbers from 1 to 12 all over the table. While I was doing the activity I realize that she needed them to be together and not too much mixed. So I reorganized my numbers and put them as much organized as the real order as I could. We started with the head, finding each number and put them in order (I help her with that) When we finished we counted them all together and praised her. It’s really hard to do this activity until number twelve, five numbers is perfect but more needs praise and encourage because she needs lots of concentration. The next week we will do it faster. And I will only count them when we finished organizing the numbers all together.

4. Finally we played with this floor numbers I printed from http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2009/10/prek-letter-c.html . The game was like this: I run to a number step on it and pronounced it, then was Noarai’s turn. I had two problems: one was that I had to do it several times until she understood the game, and help her do it; and second that she preferred to sit down on the numbers rather than step on them. I tried to walk through the numbers just saying them by order but she didn’t like that one. She preferred just to sit down in the numbers. It’s ok, I tried my best with my big womb and we had fun.

5. Each day until the next number’s day we would be counting our cereals spoons in breakfast until number 12. I also make her count when we finished bath with the cold shower (to develop a good defense immune system) to help her concentrate in numbers and not in the coldness of the water and she works numbers as well. A little naughty thing I know, but it works for us. What I want to say is that you can pick few things of your daily routine and introduce the counting part as part of the routine, and that helps you be sure that you are working and making numbers a natural part of life.