My kids have been struggling this year with counting carefully. We work on a lot of counting strategies, such as sliding objects to the side when they count, to help them with accuracy. However, as I was working on my end of year assessments, I noticed that a lot of them are still miss counting by one or two, simply because they are counting too fast. I wanted to give them a new, different way to practice this skill.
So I came up with this “math and fine motor fusion.” First I cut a bunch of strips of construction paper. I then wrote a number on the end of each strip. I focused heavily on the teens and twenties, simply because these numbers have been the most challenging for my kids. I did throw in a few single digit numbers and “challenge” numbers just for fun. Finally, I got out a bunch of hole punchers. I have a collection of “fancy” hole punchers, as well as some normal ones.
I set this activity up at my math center for the week. The kids were asked to choose a strip, and then punch the corresponding number of holes on the strip to match the number. This was great practice in a lot of ways. Hole punching is a difficult fome motor skill that requires quite a bit of hand strength and coordination. My kids also needed to count as they went. I also encouraged them to recount when they finished to ensure that they had the correct number of punches.
My kids really enjoyed this activity. The fun hole punchers made it exciting for them, and they really worked hard at matching the punches to the numbers. Best of all, it was simple but effective in helping my kids work on their counting one to one correspondence!
How to do help your students to be careful counters?
I love love this idea. I have the same problem and work on this counting skill. For example dUring calendar we all wait to count until our leader actually touches the card with the pointer. I really focus on this from the beginning and call it kindergarten counting.
That’s another great idea! I think it is important for them to see “kindergarten counting” in a lot of different contexts. They don’t always transfer skills, so they might be very careful counters in one context, but not in another. The more applications we can give them the better!