Paper Plates and Numeracy cont.

For anyone to REALLY learn something, the chance to play and the chance to make mistakes are essential.   For our paper plates and numeracy, it's important that especially in the home environment, your child can play with the numeracy plates as they wish.   This is because we do not always have enough time to play and really integrate new concepts at school.  (That sounds somewhat ironic but I do believe that equal amounts of learning happens at school and outside of school : )

Playing means that we are not always correcting them or saying, do it this way, or like this.   If they ask for help we can certainly make A SUGGESTION or asking them a leading question.   

So…when your child brings the set of plates home, you can ask them to show you what to do with them.   

At school, we will be: 

1. putting them in order

2. corresponding the number with the same number of objects 

3. using them to count objects (so if you want to know how many leaves you have, you can put one on each plate and see how many numbers are used)   

Offer some objects to your child to use at home with the plate.  

After a bit of play, encourage your child to COUNT IN FRENCH if they are not already.   At school we are practicing counting exclusively in FRENCH.  

Taking it a step further: 

- mixing objects (like photo or mixing objects on each plate)
- if your child needs more of a challenge, encourage them to set up the plates in reverse, from 8-1 and to count backwards also in FRENCH