Counting Colors
Playing counting games is something fun you can do with your child anywhere — at home, in the car, in a store or while waiting for the doctor. Children need lots of practice counting — saying numbers in the correct order and connecting each number to just one object as they count. This game will help your child to develop both skills.
Materials
Directions
Can your child guess the favorite color of Curious George and the Man with the Yellow Hat? Yellow, that’s right!
Ask your child to find 10 yellow things around the house. Count out loud as each object is found. For more of a challenge, try to find 20 objects!
Ask your child, "What is your favorite color? Now let's find 10 items with that color." Count out loud as each object is found. Can you find 20 objects?
Give your child two sheets of paper and two different colored crayons. Then ask your child to look around the house for objects that are those colors and draw a large dot on a piece of paper each time an object is found. (Use one sheet of paper for one color and the other sheet for the second color.)
When the color hunt is complete, ask your child to look at the two sheets of paper. Can they guess which sheet has more dots? Count the dots together. Write the number of dots at the top of each sheet of paper. Then look at the numbers. Ask your child, "Which sheet has the higher number? So which sheet has more dots? Was our original guess correct? Why?"
Explore Further
There are lots of ways that we can practice counting every day! As you go about your daily activities, ask your child to help you count things whenever possible. Count out ingredients for a recipe, count silverware and dishes when setting the table, or count the number of books you check out at the library.
Count with coins! If age-appropriate, ask your child to sort coins into piles by type. For example, you can ask, "How many of each type of coin do we have? What type of coin do we have the most of? What kind do we have the least of? Are there more dimes or more pennies?"
We hope you had fun together! Snap a photo of you and your child doing the activity and share it with us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. We’d love to see how it turned out!
Photography by Chelsea Foy.
Math