How to Choose a Good Counting and Numeracy Book

There are lots of books available that help young children learn to count. The important thing when learning how to count is repetition and practice and books let children practice their counting skills without them really knowing they are doing it.

Here are some of the things you should look our for when you are choosing a good numeracy book for young children:

• The story and illustrations should be just as engaging and enjoyable as any other picture book you enjoy with your child, otherwise neither you, nor your children, will want to return to it.
• Choose counting books that display the numerical form of numbers clearly. It is just as important for children to learn how to recognise numbers, as it is for them to learn how to count.
• Look for books where the items to be counted are scattered across a page in a non-uniform pattern, or are hidden amongst other objects. This will give them good practice at hard counting.
• If your child is a reluctant counter, look for character books that will engage them. Flaps, knobbly bits, noisy buttons and holes for fingers are also a good way to get your child actively involved in the book.
• Don't forget that early maths is about more than just numbers. Shapes and organising objects by size are an important part of the early foundation stage curriculum so look for books that introduce these topics as well.
• Look for books that will grow with your child. Are there opportunities for your child to do simple addition or subtraction with the book or does it help children learn how numbers are applied, such as telling the time or measuring things?

Browse the shelves, read through the books with your children in the shop before your buy. Our local bookshop has an area for reading with children and any decent bookshop will be happy to see you engaging your children in the choosing process. The real test of any children's book is whether or not your child enjoys it! But if you want somewhere to start, here are some of the counting and numeracy books we have particularly enjoyed.


Ten Little Ladybirds by Melanie Gerth and Laura Huliska-Beith
Ten Friendly Frogs by Sally Hobson

These books have bumpy, raised ladybirds and frogs on the pages that my little ones love to touch and count. Because they want to touch them so much they won't let me point and count. They insist on doing it themselves. The text is also engaging, with simple rhymes. Large numbers appear on each page so the children can learn what the numbers look like, as well as counting them.They also introduce the idea of subracting one from a number, as the books count down. Our copies of these books are falling apart at the spine because they have been so well used. In fact, Garden Lass has just run away with them and is counting frogs as I type!

Counting Colours by Roger Priddy

This is my favourite counting book and is one to use when your children can confidently count to ten. Each double page is covered with a mix of objects of the same colour. The child needs to find 9 blueberries amongst all the other blue objects, or 6 purple dresses amongst all the other purple objects. It is harder than you might think, but a fantastic way of getting them to count objects, rather than just reciting numbers. All the objects are of different sizes so we also use the book to find the biggest goldfish on the page, or the smallest apple. Being able to order objects by size is one of the things your child will learn in the foundation stage so this is a really useful book to help them.


Count with Thomas, A Lift the Flap Book

Garden Boy still enjoys reading this book and will often pick it up himself to look through. This is mainly due to that fact that it is character themed and if you are struggling to get your children counting, a counting book based around their favourite TV characters is a real incentive for them. I like this one in particular because when they have counted the objects they lift the flap to reveal a clear number, which helps them learn what the numbers they have counted look like. Recognising numbers is as important as being able to count, so good number books will show children clearly what they look like.


Nursery Time with Winnie-the-Pooh, A First Lift the Flap Book

This book has been a popular choice for all three of my children and has much more in it than just counting. There are flaps about colours, recognising shadows and fun rhymes. There is a double page of flaps with things to count. When your child lifts the flap they reveal the number in its numerical and written form and as children always lift the flaps this is a great way of familiarising them with the numbers. There is also a great bit in the book which describes what Pooh oes at different times of the day and I use this with Garden Girl, who in reception is just being introduced to the way we tell time. We have dipped into this book at various stages with all three children and they all continue to use it, enabled by the fact they have not grown out of the characters.


We All Went on Safari by Laurie Krebs and Julia Cairns

This book is beautifully illustrated and is a joy to share with my children. They love counting the animals and whilst Garden Girl is now beyond books which only count up to ten, she continues to love this book, both for the story and illustrations, but also for the fact that it introduces uses the idea that in other parts of the world people use different words for numbers. She loves learning how to count in Swahili and the book does tell you how to pronounce the Swahili words which helps me!


The Ants go Marching, illustrated by Dan Crisp

Whilst we have been reading the rhyme in this book for a long time, we have only just started to use it with Garden Girl to illustrate the idea of multiplication. It is a lovely book to introduce the idea of 'repeated addition' and Garden Girl is always impressed when there are ten rows of ten ants covering a page. It is a charming book to help explain a difficult concept.

If you have any brilliant numeracy books you would like to recommend, let me know. We love discovering new books!

Counting in Tens

Garden Girl wanted to count to 100 but didn't quite have the patience to get there. She stumbled whenever she reached 29, 39, 49 etc because she didn't know what came next. She was trying numbers such as 'twenty tenty,' and 'thirty twenty tenty', so I thought I would teach her to count in tens so she would know these numbers.

I started with repetiton, repeating the numbers over and over, asking her to say them after me. Ten, Twenty, Thirty, Forty, Fifty, Sixty, Seventy, Eighty, Ninety, One Hundred. She loved how quickly we reached one hundred and soon became familiar with the numbers, although she sometimes got them in the wrong order or missed one out. Now that she was familiar with the sound of the numbers however, I started to explain comparisons with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.

I asked her to hold her fingers up and explained the following:

When you count in tens each finger has ten tiny fairies sitting on it, so every finger is really ten fairies and not one finger.

One is the first number, Ten is the first ten, so one finger is ten fairies.
Two begins with the sound 't'. So does 'twenty', so two fingers make twenty fairies.
Three begins with the sound 'th'. So does 'thirty', so three fingers make thirty fairies.
I went on to point out how forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty and ninety all start with the same sound as four, five, six, seven, eight and nine.

All Garden Girl needs to do to count is tens is hold up a finger, say the number in ones and then find the ten that matches. She picked this up surprisingly quickly but she was familiar with all the tens before she started doing this. She knew all the words, just needed to put them in the right order. To keep it fresh in her mind we count in tens on the way to school every morning. It takes less than a minute, but by doing it every day she is starting to know the order without having to think about it.

It is also important to make sure she is aware what she is doing when she counts in tens, which is why I ask her to imagine ten tiny fairies on each finger. In this way she knows that with every finger she is adding a group of ten fairies onto the previous ten fairies. We occasionally use buttons to do the same thing, counting out ten groups of ten buttons and then counting each group in tens. Just being able to recite the numbers is not enough.

Your child needs to understand what it means to count in tens, what it looks like and that with each number you say, you are adding on ten single objects. Doing this visually, with ten groups of ten objects is the most effective way of explaining this. They will need to keep doing it to understand and remember, but only do it once each day or it will become boring. Whilst we count in tens every day, we look at groups of objects when we have a spare five minutes at a weekend. Garden Girl is more interested in reading and writing than numbers so this is enough for her, but if your child is interested in numbers, willing and you have the time, do it every day. The more they do it, the more they will understand and remember.

Counting Out

Children learn to count, usually by hearing the numbers over and over again. They practise reciting the numbers in order and they listen to parents and teachers counting things, so they gradually learn and remember the order number. However, once a child is able to recite numbers in the correct order they need to be able to apply this to counting out objects. In the early foundation stage this is something which your child will focus on.

At a recent parent consultation Garden Boy's teacher was telling us that counting a row of objects is much easier for your child than counting a group of objects, randomly organised. It is also harder for a child to count out objects by moving the object location. For instance, a child who is asked to put 10 items into a bucket will find it harder to count the objects than a child who is asked to count 10 objects which are organised in a line on the floor.

Garden Boy can count up to well past 20, however I have noticed that when he counts items, he can find it hard to keep track of what he has already counted. He will count some things twice, or he will miss out an item. Practising as much as possible is the best way to improve counting skills. But, as with all maths, it is usually better if the child doesn't realise it is work, so here are some ideas for counting activities.

• Ask your child to share out sweets. Instead of buying small packets, buy family size packets and when they have sweets ask them to count out a certain number. Change the number each time. If they are interested enough, ask them to count out 3 blue sweets, 5 red ones etc. Do the same with fruit. It will be harder for your child to count 10 grapes into a bowl if they have to pull them off the bunch as well as count them.
• Be specific about quantities when they are helping you cook. For instance, get them to measure out 4 ounces of raisons with you but then tell them the recipe also needs 12 additional raisons which they can count out for you.
• If you are packing for a holiday let your child help by counting out the correct number of socks and pants they need to take. Counting into a suitcase will make it harder for them, so when they think they have the right number, ask them to row up the pairs of socks and count them again to double check. They will find this easier and will probably be able to work out themselves if they have made a mistake. Basically, whenever there is an opportunity for them to count for a real reason they will be more willing. Garden Girl loves packing for picnics and holidays and will count things out for me because she wants to help. Garden Boy needs the humour of thinking he might have to go pantless for a day if he doesn't count them out properly. And often he will deliberately count one less so I joke about his bare bottom!
• When you are reading with your child look at the pictures and count things in them. How many times does a particular cat appear in a book? How many flowers are there on the page? There are also some excellent counting books available. We love, 'Counting Colours'. 
• Play 'Counting Catch'. Count every throw and then when someone drops the ball, start again and see if you can beat your score. Garden Girl loves trying to reach a higher number. We play 'Counting Football' with Garden Boy and we roll the ball, rather than throw it, with Garden Lass.
• Play musical instruments and get your child to count how many times you bang the drum, blow the whistle etc. Get them to copy you. Make up songs using different instruments and see if they can remember when you switched instrument. Let them make up tunes for you to copy.
• Have garden races where they first person to collect 5 stones and put them in a bucket wins, or when they are tidying up, make it a race. The first person to put 10 toys away gets a sticker. 
• When your child is drawing pictures, ask them to put a certain number of petals on a flower, or a certain number of birds on the sky, or a certain number of spots on the alien.

There are so many opportunities for counting during play. The suggestions above are all good ways of getting your child to do 'hard' counting. The items they are counting are randomly displayed, need counting into something or require your child to be doing something else at the same time, such as throwing a ball or drawing. The more they do this kind of counting, the more skilled they will become.

When I was at school I was taught the names of shapes and many of them I have remembered. But when Garden Girl asked me what a 7 sided shape was called, I just couldn't remember. Learning the name of basic shapes is part of the Foundation Stage Curriculum, but it was this that led Garden Girl to ask me about other shapes, so I thought it would be useful to list them all here. However, many shapes can be given more than one label. For instance, a square is also a quadrilateral, a rectangle, a parallelogram, a polygon and rhombus! In this post therefore, I will list the very basic shapes and the most basic, or most commonly used, label for that shape. From this starting point, in later posts I will go into more detail about different types of shape.

In the Foundation Stage your child is likely to be introduced to the following shapes:

A circle, or round shape, which is drawn using only one continuous line. There are no corners. Get your child to measure across a circle with a ruler from top to bottom, and side to side. As long as their ruler crosses through the middle of the circle (mark this on with a dot for them) they should read the same number both times.

An oval, is a curved shape, also drawn using only one continuous line. Like a circle, there are no corners, but unlike a circle the distance from top to bottom and side to side will be different. Again, get you child to measure using a ruler. Even if they do not know what centimetres are, they will understand that one number is higher, or at least different, than the other. Another way of describing an oval to a young child is 'a squashed circle'.

A semi-circle, is half a circle. That is, a circle cut into two perfectly equal pieces, using a straight line through the middle. Fold a circle in half to demonstrate how the two halves are exactly the same.

A heart is another curved shape your child will be expected to recognise in the foundation stage.

A star, is a shape with lots of points. The most commonly drawn star shapes have 5 points but they can have many more than this.

A Square, has four straight sides that are exactly the same length. The top and bottom lines are drawn flat across the page (horizontally). They do not slope at all. The two sides are drawn straight up and down (vertically). They do not slope at all. If I were to draw a stick man sitting on the top, or bottom line, of a square his legs would be stretched out flat in front of him. He would not be able to slide down the line! If I were to draw a stick man standing against the sides of a square, he would be standing up straight. He would not lean backwards or forwards.

An oblong, is a shape with four straight sides, but unlike a square the sides are not all the same length. The top and bottom lines are exactly the same length, and the two sides are exactly the same length. The top and bottom lines are drawn flat across the page (horizontally). They do not slope at all. The two sides are drawn straight up and down (vertically). They also do not slope. If I were to draw a stick man sitting on the top, or bottom, line of an oblong his legs would be stretched out flat in front of him. He would not be able to slide down the line! If I were to draw a stick man standing against the sides of an oblong, he would be standing up straight. He would not lean backwards or forwards.

A rectangle, is another name given to a square or an oblong. Both square's and oblong's are rectangles because the top and bottom lines are both perfectly horizontal and the sides are both perfectly vertical. Opposite sides of a rectangle are also always the same length.

An oblong and a rectangle are virtually the same thing. However, an oblong never has all four sides the same length. Thus, a square or an oblong can also be called a rectangle, but a square cannot be called an oblong.

A diamond, is a shape with four straight sides and four corners. The sides are all the same length. The typical diamond shape, which a child in the Foundation stage will be expected to recognise, is that which is essentially a square with two of it's corners squashed together. However, in reality a square is also a diamond (also called a rhombus). A diamond will have opposite sides which are parallel. That is, opposite sides that follow exactly the same direction as each other. They also have opposite angles, or corners, which are the same size.

A triangle, has three straight sides and three corners.

A quadrilateral, is any shape with four straight sides and four corners (this includes a square, oblong and diamond).

A pentagon, is any shape with five straight sides and five corners.

A hexagon, is any shape with six straight sides and six corners.

A  heptagon, is any shape with seven straight sides and seven corners.

An octagon, is any shape with eight straight sides and eight corners.

A nonagon, is any shape with nine straight sides and nine corners.

A decagon, is any shape with ten straight sides and ten corners.

A hendecagon, is any shape with eleven straight sides and eleven corners.

A dodecagon, is any shape with twelve straight sides and twelve corners.

A triskaidecagon, is any shape with thirteen straight sides and thirteen corners.

And yes, they do keep going. There is even a name for a shape with one million straight sides and one million corners (a Megagon, incase you are interested). And no, a child in the Foundation Stage does not need to know all these. However, once Garden Girl knew a hexagon was called that because it had 6 sides, she was prompted to ask what shapes with other quantities of sides are called. She kept going till she reached ten, but when she asked, I didn't know 7 or 9.

If all that hasn't given you a headache and you want to know more these links are very useful


http://www.mathsisfun.com/shape.html
For some useful downloadable resources have a look at Instant Display
For a short and fun song about simple shapes from BBC Learning, look here.

Top Trumps

One of the things a child in the Foundation Stage at school will be expected to learn is the concept of 'higher' and 'lower'. It sounds simple, but being able to recognise whether a number is higher or lower than another is an important basic maths skill. Top Trumps is a brilliant game to play with your children so that they can practice this concept in a fun way.

The basic idea of the game is that you have a selection of cards, each with a different character on it. Each character is given points for a specific set of things, for instance, if the pack had different birds on each card, they may be given points for the beauty of their song, their strength, their size, their flying speed. The cards are shuffled and shared amongst players, who take it in turns to choose one of the scores on their top card. Other players must then look to see if the score, on their top card, and in the same category, is higher or lower. The person whose card has the highest score for the chosen category, wins the cards from that round. The game continues until someone has won all the cards.

We have a Peppa Pig Top Trumps pack because it is a character they all love. It is also a particularly good one because it has only a small number of top trump cards. But, if you have a big pack, consider taking out some of the characters, otherwise young children will find the game takes too long. Also try to make sure you have a pack that includes numbers appropriate to your child's level. There is no point using a pack where the numbers lie between 1 and 100 if your child can only count to 20.

You could even make your own, using whatever characters you think will engage your children best. The best thing about making your own pack is that you can tailor both the number range and character to the child's ability and if you get the children involved in making the pack they will be able to practice writing the numbers, as well as determining how to allocate higher or lower scores to specific things. 'Is an eagle faster or slower than a blackbird? Should an eagle be given a higher score in speed, or lower?'

When the number range of our Peppa Pig pack gets too narrow, we will be making a fairy and a dinosaur pack. The biggest problem will be choosing which pack to use each time.

Throwing Numbers

Each week Garden Girl is sent home from school with a maths game and I have to admit that we don't always do them. This is because the quality varies week by week and sometimes we would just rather play one of our own board games, especially when the game is pretty much a roll the die and count the number of squares to move along type. This week however, we were given a maths game which had the whole family joining in and all three children calling for more time to play it when an end was called, so it seems a good one to pass on.

We did make changes though. The aim of the game was to throw paper aeroplanes at targets which were labelled with numbers between 1 and 5. When a target was hit, the pilot had to write down the number associated with the target, add it to any previous hits gained and do a victory lap if they were the first to add their score up to 10.

The aeroplanes, however, consistenly failed to hit their targets with various models acting like boomerangs, nose diving or simply flying too far past the target. Whilst we had lots of fun making and throwing the paper aeroplanes, they simply were not going to hit the targets frequently enough so we switched to using a soft ball. We also only had three targets, simply as a result of space available, but on a nice day the game could be played in the garden with more targets. The school suggested newspaper laid flat as a target, however we used boxes because it is what we had to hand.

Both Garden Girl and Garden Boy wrote down their scores and added them up until Garden Boy won, when he had 7 points and managed to hit the number 3 target. The game enabled them to practise writing their numbers and for Garden Boy it was the first time he used the + and = signs to write a sum. They added up their scores between each turn, using their fingers to check they had got it right. But it didn't feel too much like hard work for them because within a minute they were back to throwing balls and cheering each other on!