What really matters- Foundations for counting- The broader development mental models ( see Mental Models post) helps with early number skills as well. One of the earliest number concepts to develop is one to one correspondence.  Children match objects one to one before they learn to use number words, for instance, a child can hand out one cupcake to each child at a table or each doll in pretend play. One to one correspondence is one of the most basic principles behind counting.  Counting  involves matching one numeral to one object. 

How to put it into practice-

My Experience-

We tried to provide Whitney opportunities for her early counting by including objects in her environment that can be matched: balls to buckets, dolls to chairs, etc. One easy game I would try included cups and marbles. I would hand Whit a few cups and a few marbles and see what happened. Most of the time Whitney did not take me up on my invitation to exercise her one to one correspondence abilities (see video- Marble in cup- Failed attempt). She let her intent be known by stacking up the cups, saying “sorry dada”, and put them away. And that is the way it goes; sometimes she will take me up on an invite to bridge to something I deem important; sometimes she won’t. I can always come back and try it again and am challenged on how to get creative so that I do peak her interest.

Tuning In-

When Whitney did take me up on the marble in the cup game, I watched for patterns in how she placed her marbles. It was frequently not one marble per cup. but I could discern a pattern (2 per cup or all in first cup then all in last cup, etc). Some times she would place one marble per cup (see video- Marble in cup one to one).  This emerging ability takes time to take hold so we would sometimes model the one to one behavior and then simply announce the pattern once I noticed Whitney doing it. Overtime, I saw more explicit patterns in her sorting.

Extending/Bridging-

Matching one to one and other forms of classification will show up in other types of activities as well. You may also notice that our little ones will make other forms of matches that are based more on visible similarity than on physical fit, e.g. two picture cards of cows might be placed together.  You can support this form of thinking by encouraging her to think about other dimensions of similarity.  Instead of animals that look alike, how about all the animals that live on the farm.  Instead of putting the hammer with the nail, how about the hammer with the screwdriver.  Your support comes not by setting up practice drills, but more by noticing and reinforcing these new forms of classification when they happen.