Ideas for Teaching and Documenting

Assist children in counting activities and encourage them to compare and contrast groups of objects. Note children’s counting errors.

Ask open-ended or thought-provoking follow-up questions to children’s experiences with manipulatives to discover how they are thinking informally about quantity or numerical operations.

Whenever possible, counting and addition/subtraction activities should be meaningful for children.  This means finding ways to encourage them to think about numbers while they are engaged in activities that interest them.  For example, in the dramatic play area, a teacher joins the table for “lunch” and says, “There were three of you eating here before. Now that I’m here, how many cups and plates will we need?” 

This information is also available in the ELS Guide Book for future reference.