Counting Sticks

Well as much as I hate to think about it, summer is almost over.  And my daughter is going to be starting Kindergarten this year, where has the time gone? 

Kindergarten is not the same now as it was when I went.  Now they expect kids to know a LOT before they even start.  They even tested my daughter to see what we needed to work on before she started.  WOW how times have changed.  And I have been pretty bad and have not been doing much this summer except playing.  I know we should have been getting ready for school, but well this is the last summer my daughter is a little kid, from now on she will have either school or work for the rest of her life so a couple months of fun seemed appropriate… all you teachers out there probably hate me know.

That said I know we cannot play all the time so I decided it was time to refresh our memories and get some school work done.  However I thought we would make it a fun game instead of just a teaching lesson.   So yesterday we worked on our numbers.  My daughter pretty much knows her numbers and can count pretty high but she always skips 15 so I thought we would do a fun little stick counting game.  This way she can see the numbers and put them in order so she will hopefully start to remember the 15.

I also had her write all the numbers on the sticks to work on her writing some too.  This was another area she needed help in.  Two bird’s right! 

Supplies

Craft Sticks

Sharpie

Directions

 Start by writing all your numbers on your sticks (we did 1 – 20)

 Now mix up all your sticks so they are not in order but you can still see the numbers on top

 Have your child put all the sticks in order from 1 – 20 (or whatever number you went up too)

 

Variations

After she put all the numbers in order I started asking her what is 2 + 2 and had her find the correct number stick.   This is a great way to work on addition and subtraction because they can count up and down the row of sticks.  I know my daughter learns more by seeing what is going on and doing it this way she can see it.