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Counting Animals

We lined up our animals to do a little counting practice. Jake a is great counter and we are really working on 15-20. He has almost mastered through 20 but needs just a little more practice. We pulled out Little People animals plus a few random others that we have. I have really stressed pointing at the object that he is counting. He tends to count too fast and lose count. Pointing helps slow him down but does not cure him of  losing count. It is all a process.
I have found that it is good to have different numbers of objects each time we practice counting. He was always assuming there was 20 of everything so he would speed count to 20 without paying any attention to what was there to count. Another important skill to practice is having the toddler move the object after it is counted. If using coins or small objects it makes it much easier to know what has been counted. This is not something that is known, it must be taught! If you are working on numbers below 20, just work right above what they are capable of doing. For instance, if they can count one, two, three- work on counting to 4 or 5. You do not what to frustrate them by doing so many numbers they are overwhelmed. 



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