Counting past ten

When Goblin was just a bit over 2 years old he learnt to count to 12. We'd been trying to teach him to count to ten and one day he lay on the changing mat and spontaneously counted to 12. "Whoop Whoop" we thought. Fast forward two years and Goblin can now count to .... wait for it .... 13! Yup, in two years he has learnt one more number. That's not entirely true. He knows the other numbers that come after it but always mixes up 14 and jumps to 16 and then just randomly dots around in the teens until we help him out.

So I wanted to provide more opportunities for Goblin to practice counting those big numbers. But he won't do anything unless he's interested. I can't just suggest we count pasta - his response would be "Er, no thanks!" So I needed to make up a game that would grab his interest.
His current obsession is Octonauts and the idea of helping them out would definitely capture his imagination. So I made up a sheet to encourage a bit of reading. It named a character and the sea creatures that character was counting. I asked Goblin to help his favourite character Peso to identify what each of the four characters were collecting, help the character collect them on their sticky back plastic "collection tank" and count them, and finally help Peso to write the correct number in the box.

The game provided opportunities for

• letter identification/reading 
• number writing practice
• fine motor pincer grip (picking up the objects)
• sorting
• counting beyond 10

I used simple objects we already had: plastic sharks; sea shells; pompom sea urchins; and manta rays that I found on google images and printed off. Goblin stuck them to the plastic sheets provided and I helped him count them up.

When he'd arrived at the right number I wrote it down and he copied the number. We counted three of the four sets of objects and he wrote down two of them. That was pretty good going for us. We stopped because he got distracted when he discovered he could colour the inside of the sea shells with a felt tip pen!

Unconventional board games for prechoolers

(Goblin is 4) 

This post contains Amazon affiliate links. Be warned, if you click through and purchase something I will receive pennies. Obviously I think this is awesome. 

We have been trying to spend less time in front of the TV and more time playing with Goblin. As a result we have been looking for cool games that we can play as a family. The following post promotes three games that I wouldn't normally buy for a three or four year old, but they have become very popular in our house. 

Walk the Plank

We have just acquired a new game that Hublet invested in through Kickstarter (you can buy it here). It's called Walk the Plank and its a really cute little pirate game. Its not supposed to be for kids but what four year old wouldn't want to play this!
The board is simply made of one big square (the ship) and three little squares (the plank) and a circle with a sea monster on it. Each player has three little wooden pirates.
The aim is to get the other pirates to walk the plank, while trying to save at least two of your pirates. You do this using actions dictated by the cards in your hand. 
Each player has the same set of cards, which include actions such as "shove the player on the right", "retract the plank" and "I don't want to die".
The game is supposed to be played with some strategy. You are supposed to choose which cards you want to play and then lay them face down, and take turns to reveal one card, and play it. However, to give Goblin a fighting chance we started playing blind from a shuffled hand. We discovered that not only is this just as much fun, but ironically its not that different to playing with a strategy in terms of your likelihood of winning.
The amazing thing about this game is that we have only played it four or five times and Goblin can already "read" the cards. A combination of recognising the picture on the card and looking at the letters at the beginning of the words. 
STEALTH LITERACY!

Zombie Dice 

This was a game Hublet bought a while ago for us to play together. But its so nice and simple that Goblin can play too, and despite the name its perfectly age inappropriate (except you may not want to go into detail about why Zombies like brains!).
There are 13 dice in the pot, you take three at a time and roll them. The aim is to collect brains. However, if you get a 'shot gun blast' you have to keep it - and if you get three blasts its the end of your turn and it cancels out any brains you collected on that turn.
As well as brains and blasts you can roll feet. If you roll feet you can choose to 'stick' or re-roll. If you re-roll you keep the die with the feet and take as many more dice as you need to make it up to three. 
The dice are 'loaded' by colour. Red dice have more blasts and less brains - therefore you know its more of a gamble to roll again with a red die than a green die.
You carry on taking turns and adding the number of brains you get. The winner is the first person to thirteen brains.
Goblin loves playing this simple game. And I like him playing it because its great for counting and basic addition. 
STEALTH NUMERACY!

Here is a link to Wil Wheaton's Table Top which reviews Zombie dice - it also reviews 'Get Bit' (on our 'to buy' list) which is another game developed by the same maker as Walk the Plank. 

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Number Ladybirds

(Goblin is 4)

This post contains amazon affiliate links. If you click through and purchase using the link I get some pennies, which is always nice. 

Goblin is still a little unsure about his number symbols. He also has trouble counting past 13. He tends to jump around a lot in the teens. To help him with both I have been trying to expose him to numbers a bit more. 

One morning after we read Eric Carle's book The Bad-tempered Ladybird I left the above invitation to play for Goblin. I asked him what the numbers said and then we stuck the corresponding numbers on the wings. 

This is the pattern I used in case you want to do similar - one big black oval, and a same sized red oval with the top one third cut off and the bottom sliced down the middle - simples!

I decided to do odd numbers as leaves and even numbers as ladybirds. When I first hung them I tried to do it on a cane, but as you can see it doesn't work great as a number line because the numbers are a nit all over the place. So I took it down and hung it as bunting instead.

This works much better and it hangs over our dinner table so we get a chance to chat about numbers at breakfast.

Number recognition

(Goblin is nearly 4)

Goblin has never shown much interest in numbers, so he still doesn't know what number symbols correspond to which quantity. I've been trying to help him with this by playing a simple number game with him. 

We are using some needle felt gnomes I made (I have a tutorial here) and a big foam die. The game is really simple. We take turns to roll the die and take the gnome that corresponds to the number on it. I only have 5 gnomes (at the moment) so 6 is miss a go (as is rolling one that's already been taken).

I reinforce the numbers by either saying the number as its rolled, or asking Goblin what number he has rolled and what number gnome he is looking for. The winner is the one with the most gnomes.
Goblin really likes this game. He has decided the gnomes are a family, Mummy, Daddy, baby and Granny and Grandpa. If he gets upset about losing, I get the gnomes I have to talk to the gnomes he has and ask if they can come and play. This always turns his frown upside down.

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Kids Coop - Board Games for 3 - 4 year olds

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Its time for Kids Coop, please link up your kids activity posts and check out what everyone else is up to. This week I am linking the following:
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This post contains Amazon.co.uk affiliate links
(Goblin is 44 months)

I'm excited because Goblin has started to want to play games with rules. I have to admit that given his tendency to do his own thing regardless, I hadn't thought that board games would be his thing, but apparently they are. We have had some hits and some misses so I wanted to share a few that have been real successes.

1: Candy Land

This is by far top of the bill. It is super easy to play and your child only needs to know their colours and be able to count to 2. The game involves up to 4 people who have to go from the beginning of the board to the castle at the end, along the coloured square path. To move you take a card from the pile. It has either one coloured square or two squares of the same colour. You move to the next square of the colour, or if there are two squares you move to the second square of that colour. See I told you it was easy. 

There are however a handful of 'wild cards'. These are pictures of candy that match a single picture on the board. If you get that card you move to where ever that picture is. This can create a massive advantage if you move early in the game to the end of the path, but equally it can send you right back to the beginning if you get an early picture and you are near the end of the path. If your child is a sensitive sort who is likely to throw a fit if this happens to them you can just remove those cards from the pack. We were pleasantly surprised by how well Goblin handled it when he was sent back, but I think that is because we were playing it as a fun game rather than a competition to get to the end first. We also keep playing until every player has finished so there is no urgency to be the winner.
This game teaches basic counting and observation skills, turn taking and patience and how to be a gracious winner or loser.

2: Go Away Monster

Go Away Monster is for up to four players. Each player has a board which is a picture of a bedroom with four bits of furniture missing. To get your furniture you take turns to dip your hand in the mystery bag and pull out a piece using only feel to determine wether its a piece of furniture you need or a monster. If its a monster you pull out you shout "GO AWAY MONSTER" and throw it into the box. The aim is to complete your room before all the monsters are pulled out.
This game reminds me of Montessori mystery bags. It teaches a child to use the sense of feel rather than sight to identify and object. The game would be utterly awesome of the shapes were three dimensional but it is still fun with the two dimensional shapes. Goblin enjoys playing this although he doesn't shout at the monsters, he says "hello Monster" before placing them carefully in the box - and he isn't too interested in not pulling out monsters.

3: Formula D

When Hublet first brought this game home I sighed inwardly. It looked really complicated and I predicted Goblin based meltdowns as Hublet tried to explain the rules. However, while it can be played by adults with all the more complicated rules applied, this game is also very accessible to preschoolers on a much simpler level. Children need to be able to count to about 30 and recognise numerical digits. That said Goblin can't count beyond 12 and doesn't recognise any numbers above 5 and was still happily able to play this with a bit of assistance.
The game involves very tiny cars - the type that babies would swallow and choke on - which you line up on the starter grid. Each player has a gear box and on each turn you decide whether to stick in the gear you are in, go up a gear or go down a gear - this dictates which dice you use. The lower gears have dice that only generate low numbers and the higher gears have dice that generate higher numbers. You roll your dice and move that many squares. If two cars land next to each other a dice is rolled to determine whether there has been any damage incurred to either car. At various points around the race track there are sections where you must land/stop or you incur damage. Hence having to change up and down gear - if you are two spaces away from a section you need to stop in you don't want to be rolling a dice that will give you an 8 or higher because you won't land in the section.
Confused? Yeah it is more complicated than the other two games which are specifically made for kids, but Goblin sat and played this with us for an entire half hour and followed the rules as we explained them. I think it helped that he is obsessed by vehicles.
This game teaches counting, turn taking, numerical recognition, graceful winning and losing, patiences and how to drive stick!

Other games we have tried that haven't been so popular in our family include
Connect 4 - Goblin isn't interested in the rules and turn taking aspect which may be because he had this game as a Montessori activity when he was a baby - I used to let him post the counters in to improve his gross motor and fine motor movements.
Ludo - Goblin just gets bored, it takes too long fo rthe game to finish with nothing interesting happening except taking turns to move a piece forward.
Snap  - he enjoys it but doesn't quite get it and often the packs we play with have too few snaps.

I'd love to hear any recommendations you have for board games for this age group.
And now to the linky 

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Kids Coop - numbers

 
<center> <a href="http://www.tamingthegoblin.com/search/label/kids%20coop"></p> <p> <font color="#808080" face="'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/FkLk8.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a></font></p> <p> <font color="#808080" face="'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></center> Its Kids Coop time again, please link up your kids orientated posts and check out what others have been up to. This week I'm linking the following:

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(Goblin is 43 months)

Goblin can count but he doesn't know his number symbols. He is also not particularly interesting in learning them. I know a lot of children do know them by now but I don't think he will be damaged by getting there later than some. But I am trying to ensure that he is exposed to them regularly through play. 

And the other day I found a perfect opportunity. I laid out some handkerchiefs that I'd stuck sticky black felt numbers and corresponding dots to. Goblin was playing with his truck and I asked him if he could make some deliveries.

I told him each person was at a garage and they needed the right number of flat marbles delivered to their unit. He happily took the challenge and drove his truck round. I voiced the little people giving him instructions to leave the marbles and helping him count out the right number.

He did a great job with the low numbers, but by the time he reached the bigger ones he realised he could just leave a pile of marbles and get the little people to take as many as they needed. I tried insisting that the delivery driver needed to take back the extra ones, but he wasn't falling for it. Bt it wasn't a total bust because we still got to talk about the numbers.

And now to the linky.

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