Ideas to build children counting skills!

   Fun Counting Cards

These fun counting cards are an excellent way to help your preschool child or students build number sense and counting skills! Even though they were created for my Spanish class it can also be used for English or any target language.

Here are a few ideas you can use with these cards: (the ideas and examples will be in Spanish but can be apply to any language)

1.                              Give each student a card. Tell them to count in Spanish the objects on the card. Students should say in the target language how many objects are on their card and then find the corresponding number to place on the card. You can ask students: ¿cuántos objetos hay en tu tarjeta?( how many objects are on your card?) Student respond saying for example: “tres”

2.                              The cards are also great for learning new vocabulary words. So you can be more specific and ask the student for example: ¿cuántas mariquitas hay en tu tarjeta? students response should  be: “seis”

3.                              For older preschoolers 4 and 5 years of age you can give them each one or more cards depending on size of the group and allow them to count the objects on the card then you can say: ¿quién necesita el número cuatro? (how needs number four?) and so on. Students will say: “yo necesito cuatro”. I work with students that do not come from a Spanish speaking background so we go over this many times and they pick it up very fast. When teaching a foreign language I realized that kids learn faster when you just speak the language. Doing translation is not as effective as just speaking it and allowing the kids to understand by logical deduction. Demonstration rather than translation is very effective.  

4.                              The cards can also be use to find out who has what. For example you can ask: ¿quién tiene la tarjeta con la rana? student with that card can say “yo”. It’s good for practicing how to say “me” in Spanish  which is “yo”

Variation

You can also use blank cards for this game and use manipulative to fill the cards instead. See examples below.

Some of the manipulative you can use are: different size and color buttons, counters, foam stickers, stones, etc…. you can even use foam or plastic numbers instead of the card numbers like in the example below. You may need to help your child or students as they count.

These kinds of game help encourage and engage students in speaking the target language.

You can access the blank cards and number cards here for free. 

If you will like to purchase the Fun Counting Cards click here.

 

Have fun!

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