Teaching Number Recognition Is HARD Try These 6 Games

Some children find recognizing numbers really, really challenging. You can show them the same simple numbers again and again over and over every day and it just doesn't go in. There is no magic wand, but luckily there are lots of strategies and exciting things you can do to try and get children interested and start the process of recognizing numbers. I'm going to show you my six ultimate number recognition games and strategies. And then at the end, I've got top ninja tip as well. So, make sure you stick around for that. And let's dive in. Game number one is whack the dough. Very, very exciting. This one, you just need some kind of Play-Doh for this. And also some kind of dice. Dice games are really good for getting children started with number recognition cuz what any game you're playing, there's lots of repetition. They're seeing numbers over and over again. As long as it's an exciting game, and whack the dough is about as exciting as they come. What you do, you get lots play-doh. And the children make lots of balls of dough. this kind of thing. You make loads of those, maybe like 50 or so. Loads of balls of dough. Then I'll show you the next bit. Okay. Right. I've not made 50, but I've made loads. And this will do to show you how to play. It could be two-player game this or you could do it with lots of people. It could be like about six, probably about six players max. One person rolls dice and for example, you might get five. That means everyone is going to try and whack five bits of dough. You try and read the number and you go bit like one, two, three, four, five. Then you go again. Could be six. And you whack six. One, two, and all that kind of thing. And you just keep going until all the dough is whacked. The numbers just keep on coming. They're seeing them again and again. Also, you can whack the dough in different ways. You could use something like fly swatter. That'd be very exciting. Or you could put gobbles on and use little mallets. Give really good whack. Great fun and great for number recognition. Next strategy is tapping into children's interests. Some children, definitely not all, but some of them have bit of problem with number recognition cuz they're just not really very interested. They see numbers and they just they don't really care, basically. So, the idea here is work out what they're interested in and take the numbers to them. That's basically what it's all about. If you have, for example, child that loves T-Rexes, why not put some numbers on the backs of the T-Rexes, just like little sticky notes or something. It could be something like construction is big one. Lots of children are really passionate about construction. Something really simple like some mega blocks with few numbers on or Lego or something like that. Vehicles is great one as well. So, many children are passionate about things like monster trucks, racing cars, toy trains, all that kind of stuff. So, you can get bit of number into vehicle stuff as well, that's often winner. For example, here, very, very simple. I've just created car park. The easiest thing ever, just on big board, simple car park and just simple game. You say things like, would you could you drive the yellow car onto number four? Could you drive the white car onto number six? And all that kind of and you can make up similar game to this so simply. It could be train track with numbers on, or it could be an airplane hanger, or, you know, whatever you think. Be creative. All children are interested in something. It's just working out what those interests are and taking the numbers to them. wouldn't put numbers in everything though, that can totally kill it. If you're just covering everything in numbers, that just totally kills the idea and puts them off forever. But just some targeted numbers or something they're interested in, happy days. If you're liking these games so far, then please do hit that like button underneath this video. That really helps spread these games to wider audience. So yeah, please do hit the like. Thank you so much. This next game is pretty ninja, have to say, and it's Number Actions. The idea behind this one is so many children are very active and physical and they need to learn things through moving and doing things practically and number recognition is not always that but it is if you do number actions basically the idea of this I've just invented some actions that go with the numbers and it's quite simply just show the children the numbers and do the actions at the same time. Let me talk you through what the actions are. As say I've totally invented these myself and if you can think of any better ones please do put it in the comments below. I'd love to hear any fantastic improved number actions that you come up with to revolutionize the whole number recognition thing. So yeah, stick comment if you can think of any. Anyway, the ones use are this. Number one, just go like this one. Two is two arms. Very simple. Two. Three. quite like this one. Three is Mickey Mouse ears on this side cuz think it looks bit like Mickey Mouse ears basically but on their side. So what you do, you do your best Mickey Mouse ears like this, but then you do them on the side and you say three. Four. Another classic one is when you lose your ball in golf and you go bit like four. Five is five. Nice simple one. We better do zero as well. Zero is with with funny voice. You got to be like zero like this. Do big round circle and only stop at five. think often when children they've learned one to five, they'll learn the rest. It's just getting them started and this is great way just like springboard to get them started with number recognition. Okay, I've shuffled them up now and it's your turn at home to join in and see if you can remember what the actions are. So, two two arms. Three, my favorite Mickey Mouse is on the side. Four. Four. Five. Zero zero with massive angry face and one dead easy one arm. So there we go. Just do bit of that. Giving the children flash cards doing the actions. Great fun. You can also use these actions when you play other games as well. Maybe you're counting game with stones or something and few flash cards. You can throw the actions into the game as well and it all brings it all to life. Another game that think really helps getting the children used to the the shapes of different numbers is coming up with little chants. I've got chant for every different number and I'll put the the chant under the video in the description, but I'll just show you couple as an example. the number three, for example, is one they like. The number three, what you do, get them to draw it with their finger, and it goes like this. curl for you and curl for me. That's how you make the number three. Just like that. Number five as well, you go bit like down and around for number five. Put on his hat and he comes alive. Bit cheesy, bit corny, but it's not designed for adults. It's designed for kids. They do like it. It's just nice way for them to visualize and see and understand how numbers are formed. Next, we have big skywriting. Another very exciting one. The idea of this, get the children to stand up and you're going to be drawing in the air. Pretend numbers. You could just use your finger. You know, for example, there's number three. You could just be drawing the number three nice and big in the air. But to make it even more exciting, there's lots of different things you could use. Things like big streamers are really exciting and the children can wave them around. Or my ultimate favorite thing to use is torch. Some kind of little torch like this is absolutely perfect. And don't call these torches when use these with children as well. These are the superhero lasers. Very, very exciting. What you do, you turn the lights off. So, let's have go at doing that now. So, the lights are off, the children stand up with their torches, the superhero lasers, and you just draw different numbers in the air for like two for example, and you just draw it again. It's good if they can see the number somewhere. So, you can put it on big board at the front of the room or something. They actually see what the number looks like and kind of trace it with the superhero laser. They can even fire the laser towards the number and trace around it. And that really really helps get them to really use like the whole bodies. Get them to stretch up to the sky, down to the ground, all that kind of stuff. Make massive numbers. You can do it to music potentially as well. Get some music on, get them all doing the numbers to music, all that kind of stuff. Loads of ways of doing it, making it exciting, active, and all that kind of stuff. Another fantastic way of getting children interested in numbers and starting to recognize them is by using books. books that have numbers in them. There's hundreds of these. think books are really special that they really do get lot of children's attention. Even young children that have very short attention span and seem to be all over the place in their attention. Sometimes books can really hook them in. And it's one of the best ways just getting them concentrate on one thing for while. And there's loads of these books that have numbers in. This is one example, but could have picked like 100 books for this. But this is fantastic number book. One is snail, 10 is crab. On almost every page of this book, there are lots of different numbers. For example, on here there is number two. And it's just great book for doing things like tracing around the number, talking about the number, counting as well, like the two feet on this person, for example, one, two, and all this kind of stuff. Loads of books like that. So, yeah, give books go for number recognition. If you found this video useful, then another one you'll really appreciate is my rope counting games ideas. I've done whole video, lots and lots of fantastic counting ideas using lots of exciting resources, all that kind of thing. That video is going to be popping up on the screen here.