Sensory Tray: Play With Numbers

Simply adding number figures into children's play can help children to build their number recognition. Slowly you can give the numbers more meaning through talking about their shape and using them to count maybe using other resources to help. Using methods like this can help you to avoid tools such as flash cards. 

We recently found this great number cereal which was sent to us in a hamper we won from Organix on Instagram. We tried the cereal and the children unfortunately did not like it but I found another use for it. I was covering another childminders holiday last week and I had noticed that the little girl (O) loved to play with the gravel, pouring it in and out of pots.  She I set up this invitation to play with her in mind and also thinking about my aim to get Little man more familiar with numbers this year. 

Resources needed:

• number cereal or pasta
• scoops (mine are out of Tinnies formula milk)
• ice cube trays and pots
• a large tray to play with it in. 

On the day I put this activity out I was looking after children aged 18 months, 3 years, 4 years, 8 years and 9 years old. This activity was suitable for all ages played with in different ways through out the day. 

The older children used the tray for role play and pretended to dish up food in a cafe. While Little man and is pal helped to sort the numbers into the ice tray using a different section for each number. The four year old lead the play with little man saying that it was his work and no idea that he was learning to recognise the numbers along the way. 

Through out the day O kept returning to the sensory tray and would feel the pots placing the cereal in one by one and then pouring them out again. At the end of the day the cereal was packed away in an air tight container to be used again. 

Development Matters Framework:
Communication and Language- Listens and responds to ideas expressed by others in
conversation or discussion.
Mathematics (numbers)- Begins to make comparisons between quantities. Recites some number names in sequence. Recognises numerals 1 to 5.