Do you have a child that’s ready to move beyond counting 1-10? Then you’re ready for our Big Numbers (Counting 2) STEM kit! This kit is perfect for the child who is working on counting from 1-120. My first grader really enjoyed these activities, and has requested to do them again and again!
This kit contains 3 different activities to practice those bigger numbers:
- Sequencing trains 1-100
- Make a Splash! 120 mat game + many activities
- Numbers to 100 matchups
- Sheep Won’t Sleep book
- How Many Jelly Beans? book
I think starting with the Sequencing Trains is a great beginning. It focuses on sequential order up to 100, and the other two activities then help the child represent those numbers in different ways (Numbers to 100 Matchups) or help move within 1-120 (Make a Splash! game).
The Sequencing Trains help children put groups of tens in order: 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, and so on, up to 100. Each group of 10 is a different color. Within each group, the pieces are self-correcting: 3 will not fit to 5, or 7 to 4. Each group is finished with a train engine and caboose to chug off into the number-mastery sunset.
The Make a Splash game is a big vinyl mat that comes with lots of activity ideas. You can practice just finding the numbers, then work on the relationships between them. What is 10 less than 49? Use in the included more/less than frames to help!
There are fun included dice to roll, too!
The last activity is the number matchups. This doesn’t cover every number, but it does have a representative sample up to 100. I like how the numbers are represented in different ways. Here are some examples:
Learning how to represent numbers as groups of tens and ones is a very important part of elementary math. This activity is great for showing children different ways to represent the same quantity.
Finally, there are some fun books about counting those big numbers! Sheep Won’t Sleep is about a girl counting sheep…and alpacas…and llamas…and yaks before bed. She counts them in groups of 2s, 5s, and 10s, so its good skip counting practice. How Many Jelly Beans? calls itself “a giant book of giant numbers!,” which it is! Emma and Aiden think about how many jelly beans they could eat in a year. 1000? 5000? 10,000? Each page has a picture with that many jelly beans–wait until you get to the huge fold out page for 1 million jelly beans!
This kit is available in the Youth Services department in the STEM kit area (it’s in the northwest corner of the floor, between the J Fiction and the Story & Activity Room). It checks out for 3 weeks.
Questions? Email Laura at [email protected].