Number ‘O
Sphere Fun
Hi and thanks for stopping by! Today I will
share some fun ideas and activities teaching numbers to children. These
ideas and activities are appropriate for ages 4 to 8.
I was at a CVS pharmacy the other day and I
came across this cute and fun portable snack container. What made this
container even more attractive was the fact that it is one of the kid’s
favorite sesame street characters. It
was Elmo! Immediately I thought this would be fun to use not as a snack
container but as a fun activity for students for learning and reinforcement; and
I was not mistaken!
So I took it to my next class, and we all had lots
of fun!
Today I will share what we did and other
activities you can use with your students.
I have been teaching my students numbers. With
my four and five year old students my goal is to have them recognize and say
the numbers in Spanish in random order. For this to take place I decided to
select a group of numbers to work with at a time. These are the numbers I
chose: 1, 5, 8, 15, and 18. But you can choose any group of numbers. First, I
started with 1, 5, and 8 and after students were well familiar with those
numbers I added 15 and 18.
We did activities 1 & 2.
Activity
1: Put the selected group of numbers inside the
snack container. Have students sit in a circle. Put some music on or play a
percussion instrument as the children passes Elmo’s head around. You can say in
Spanish: “Pasa la cabeza de Elmo”.
When the music stops, the person with Elmo’s head takes out a number and say
it. And so on until everyone gets a turn.
Activity
2: Instead
of having the students pass Elmo’s head around, you can gently throw the head
to a student. The head is already shaped like a ball so it’s very appropriate for
throwing. This one is their favorite. Select a student to throw the head to and
have the student take a number out and say it in the target language.
Activity
3: Put one number inside of Elmo’s mouth. Student
gets turn guessing the number. You can say something like this: “qué número hay en la boca de Elmo?” The
first student to guess the correct number gets some type of manipulative. (stickers,
buttons, dry peas, pet counters, foam counters, bear counters, etc). At the end
have students count in Spanish their manipulatives. Have them practice by
saying in Spanish as an example: “Tengo cinco”.
Activity 4: This one is similar to activity 3
but instead of putting numbers inside Elmo’s head you can use small miniature
objects or small cards with vocabulary images on it. You can ask your students: “¿qué
hay en la boca de Elmo?” then you can answer by saying: “en la boca de Elmo hay una silla” or “en la boca de Elmo hay un carro azul”, while taking it out to show them, etc… Kids
will have fun with this activity but at the same time they will be learning not
only isolated words but also how to use the language for asking and responding.
You can use it for giving commands. For example you
can give commands such as: “abre la boca
de Elmo” “saca un número” “cierra la
boca de Elmo”.
You can use these activities not only with numbers
but with shapes, colors, words, food, etc…any topics or subject you are
teaching. It would be fun also to use it with foods.
Because I work before hand with a selected group of numbers,
when doing these activities children already know the numbers. It’s not usual
for a student not to say the correct number. These activities are just reinforcement of
what they have already learned.
I created "number recognition sheets" for introducing the group of numbers 1, 5 and 8. You can see three short videos of one of my four year old class using it. Click the following link and once the new window opens scroll down just a little to view. Click here to see the short videos.
If you would like to have number recognition sheets you can download
them for free here.
I also included a worksheet with those numbers.
You can purchase Sesame Street snack containers
at pharmacies, Wal-Mart or on Amazon. They even have the Cookie Monster head. I
already purchased it. Will share further on how it goes! J
Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
Thank you and….
Have Fun!
