Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Raindrop Hop {Active Skip Counting Practice}


Our kindergartner is pretty good with numbers but I've noticed when he skip counts by twos, there's a long pause after 10. To help improve the pace with which he can move through these numbers, I found a fun way to memorize the sequence.


I grabbed a few sticks of sidewalk chalk and drew a big cloud with approximately 20 droplets (I think I got carried away and made 21 drops) of rain coming out of it. On the droplets, I randomly wrote the numbers 1-20. To make sure the 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. weren't too far apart from each other, I started with those numbers first. Then I simply filled in the odd numbers.

When he came outside, he was intrigued.

The instructions were simple. Start at the cloud and hop the raindrops skip-counting by twos all the way to 20. At first, it'll be a gentle rain, with your child slowly jumping their way to 20.

Tell your child the rain is getting heavier and FASTER. See if they can say and jump the sequence with greater speed. 

You can really have fun with this from sprinkle, to steady rain, to all-out down pour, the more times your child hops the drops, the better they'll become at memorizing the numbers!

Given that we've been getting loads of rain this spring, this activity was perfect. A neighborhood friend came over and the both of them got hopping!

2 comments:

  1. That is such a clever -- and easy -- idea! I'm going to do this with my grandkids!

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  2. Nice raindrop and active skip counting tips.

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