Motor Vehicle Count Up!

Why yessirree, I do like vehicles :)  And, I love counting--counting up, counting down. It's all early math, and I love to do it in a playful way.  So today, I've got my BIG Transportation set (which you may have seen here), and I'm using it to count UP.

Motor Vehicle Count Up © Wendy Gerbi

Start with an empty board, adding your pieces at the appropriate parts of the rhyme. 

 

No motor vehicles traveling today,

No motor vehicles carrying people on their way.

Along comes a car, hear the engine roar!

Now there’s one motor vehicle, let’s go find some more!

 

(Continue adding any 4 vehicles you want, (make sure you include at least one each that drives, sails or flies) counting up until…)

Five motor vehicles traveling today, 

Five motor vehicles carrying people on their way.

They drop off the passengers, the people wave goodbye.

They’ll be back tomorrow to drive, sail and fly!

Here’s a video for you!

And in case you want to see them up close, here are a couple more photos for you :)

Happy transporting!  Happy counting!  See you next time :)

Counting Kittens

 Oh, why not?  Let's add one more way to use these adorable kittens to the circle time mix!  With numbers, this time... (You can find the KITTY bingo song here, and the Ball of Yarn game is right here!

Sometimes it's fun to count up, and sometimes its fun to count down... This time, we're starting with five, and counting down to none--how sad to see them go!

I like to sprinkle vocabulary words into my rhymes, so we're not only counting, we're building knowledge about the subject at hand.  This time it's cat knowledge :)

Five Little Kittens ©Wendy Gerbi

Five little kittens, stretching by the door, 

One pounces away, and that leaves four. 

Four little kittens, scratching on a tree, 

One pounces away, and that leaves three. 

Three little kittens, hissing at you! 

One pounces away, and that leaves two. 

Two little kittens, purring in the sun, 

One pounces away, and that leaves one. 

One little kitten, looking for some fun 

She pounces off to join her friends, and that leaves none! 

Oh, by the way--since you're here, I know you like fun circle time stuff...  

So feel free to go check out my YouTube channel for tons more ideas!

Annndddd....  Here's a video of the Five Little Kittens:

Simple Math Activities

Math is an area that can sometimes be a struggle when it comes to including it in a preschool curriculum.  Some teachers can feel intimidated or unsure of how to provide opportunities to develop math skills in a developmentally appropriate way.

It's important to realize that math is all over the place--you don't have to do "projects" to help children gain math skills.  Your engagement with the kids as they use the simplest materials can help them gain math concepts like one-to-one correspondence, sorting, and patterning.  Below are some examples of incredibly simple materials that build math skills naturally through play.

The shape sorting puzzle above is a math bonanza on its own, and combined with teddy bear counters it goes even further.  Children can sort both the blocks and bears by color and size; they can line them up and begin to create patterns; they can put all the red things together, or all the small things together, or create a pile of just blue and yellow, a line of alternating blue and green...  The list goes on and on.  See how they're working with the materials on their own, and enter their play at that level.  Then as they're ready, you can begin to make suggestions, or simply model another idea to get them thinking.

Even toddler toys like the linking ducks above provide math opportunities, over and above the obvious fine motor skills involved.  "Oh, it looks like you have three blue ducks in your line.  Can you help me count them?  1, 2, 3.  Yep!  You've got three.  I wonder how many yellow ducks we can add to your line?"  

Adding colored bowls, plates, or even pieces of colored paper to a set of counters adds another element of math.  Children might choose to sort by color into the coordinating bowl/plate/paper.  They also might not--and that's fine! It's all about providing the opportunity, not doing things the "right" way.  Commenting on what you see is a great way to simply make children more aware of things.  "Hey, look!  You put two purple animals in a purple bowl, and you put one purple animal in a yellow bowl!  I wonder where you're going to put that blue animal?  We have five bowls to choose from..."  Using math language really does occur naturally when you involve yourself.  Open-ended questions are the way to go, as it encourages thinking and language development.

What are your favorite math materials?  How do you encourage math skills in a developmentally appropriate way?  Comment below--I'd love to hear your ideas!

Want more preschool-related stuff?

And if you liked this blog post, you might like my other blog:

https://flannelboardfun.com/blog/

Create a Car (or really, a vehicle :)

Another custom order that's turned into something I'll carry regularly in my shop!  This set is along the same lines as many of my other do-it-yourself sets, and this time the theme is vehicles.  If I were still teaching, I would love to see what kind of crazy combinations the kids would come up with by mixing the various vehicle parts together...  

This set is great for color and number naming and recognition, and could easily be used in a group time by handing out the pieces and letting the kids come up and decide where their piece could go!  You could also ask things like "If you have a red piece that is BIG, come put it on the board...or..If you have an orange piece that is small, come put it on the board."  You could play a color sorting game, and just have them bring their pieces to a designated area of the board, not building anything, or you could decide as a group that you want to build four vehicles--you could build the bases and then ask them to come put the wheels, windows, and other accessories on.  What a great team work project that builds vocabulary at the same time.  I love these sets as both a group time activity and for kids to use on their own...

Discover Flannel Friday--and join in if you like to make flannel boards, too!

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Five Little Monkeys

Editing:  It's come to my attention that The Five Little Monkeys has racist roots.  For this reason, I no longer use, recommend, or sell this set in my shop.  Here's some more information.

After I made this, I realized I already have another very similar set (which I've never used!)  These monkeys are  a bit smaller, and numbered...  We are working on having more print numbers available for the children that represent quantity, so this will be a set that the teachers and children both have access to.

I based my cute little creatures on a Precious Patterns pattern.  And though my bed looks a whole lot like the one in my other set, this one is actually from a clipart search.  And my doctor's stethoscope is directly copied from my snowman doctor's...

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Kate at Felt Board Magic! Please also check out the Flannel Friday Blog, Facebook, and Pinterest pages, which will give you tons of information and gazillions of ideas to spruce up your story times :)

Five Friendly Monsters...or are they Aliens?

These are stolen!  I saw them at Falling Flannelboards and had to have them!  Their eyeballs are so cute, and we love to talk about 'eyeballs' in my three-year-old class...

This particular set isn't for sale, but please check out my shop with many of my other sets:

Flannel Board Fun Shop

We use these (little, friendly, or silly) guys as either monsters or aliens.  We've had them jump on a bed or in a crib as monsters, and they've also bounced on planets when we call them aliens.  When you first say "monster" to young children, you might get some fearful looks--but by calling them friendly or silly, and by giggling at their adorable eyeballs, and by having them bounce around in a baby's crib, for goodness sake, the fears can be dispelled a bit. I also have a laminated set of these so the children can handle them often, giving them a little more control over something that might be a scary concept.

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Emily at Literary Hoots.  You can also find lots of wonderful ideas at Pinterest and Facebook.

Counting Cupcakes!

This is a set that I won't use in front of a group, but I think the children will really love playing with it independently.  This will be great for color sorting, counting, and patterning--and I expect there will be some imaginative play going on as well as they use these.

I simply drew these sweeties. Easy as pie.  Or, cupcakes...

This particular cupcake set is no longer for sale, but here's a fun one for lots of fine motor fun and imaginative play:

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Mollie at What Happens in Storytime!  You can also find 850,000+ felt and story ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest pages, or Flannel Friday's Facebook Page --check them out!