Enjoying numbers in everyday life – incorporate numerical language into all activities.

Making models with ‘junk’ helps children to:

• Learn about numbers and counting
• Learn about shapes and sizes – big and little, bigger and smaller
• Learn about how to use glue and scissors

Don’t worry if you end up with a soggy mess! Children enjoy experimenting and playing with materials and they learn a lot while they are doing this. They may not be very interested in the final result!

Save some empty cereal packets, cardboard tubes and boxes, and plastic containers. Encourage your child to play with them – sticking, cutting and making models.

• Your child might have an idea of what she wants to make – a space ship, a car, a house…
• They might have fun experimenting with containers of different shapes and sizes – fitting them together and taking them apart.

While your child is playing, there will be lots of chances to talk about numbers:

• “how many wheels do we want it to have?”
• “one, two, three, four…”
• “let’s stick two little boxes onto one big box”

Learning numbers through song! Enjoy this medley of number related nursery rhymes.