My toddler is definitely smack dab in the middle of the toddler years. He can "count" to 20 at this point and with prompting he can count to 10 in German and somewhere between 5-10 in Spanish. But can he really understand the meaning behind those numbers? Not yet. Often he'll point out a group of objects and "count" them, but go much higher than he ought. We're going to be working on comprehension.
Time for new games!
As usual I'm finding some my inspiration on Montessori blogs and websites. I love the quiet but enjoyable hands-on learning of Montessori. What I don't love are the shipping prices. Even when I find some equipment that's reasonably priced. $20s to ship an $8 item? Or even $20 to ship a $20 item? Ouch, that adds up quickly! So the $10 on-sale set of cut-out numerals and counters started to sound a little on the expensive side when I factored in the shipping.
It's the end of July so Target's moved some of their "educational" items to the $1-2 section at the front of the store. The cheap sets of numeral and alphabet magnets are there too. Although far from natural materials, not very beautiful, not all the same color, and definitely not high quality, I realized they're something he could actively play with for some hands-on number work. They'd work! Ideally once I get home I'll find some nice round red chips of some sort to use as counters. But while at my mom's house I made use of some of her empty spools. You can see it works just fine!
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