Junior Infants are super at counting! Before doing the maths worksheets in the work pack practice some mental maths activities and counting games with your child.
- Try counting forwards and backwards to 20.
- Clap a number and ask your child how many claps they heard.
- Bounce a ball and ask your child to count the bounces.
- Call out a number between 1-10 and ask your child to show you that number as quickly as possible.
- Roll a dice and ask your child to say the number that they see (they should be able to do this without counting as we’ve been practicing recognising dice patterns).
- Ask your child what number comes after 7,3,5, etc? what number comes before 2,6,9 etc? (keep the numbers between 1-10 before progressing to 10-20 with a number line in front of them, then 10-20 without a number line- I wouldn’t do all this on the one day. If your child is getting confused with before and after ask them ‘what age are you? What age were you before you were 5? What age will you be after you are 5?’
- Gather a few people in a circle and a ball. Throw the ball between you saying the number that comes next. Start at 1, finish at 20.
- Using pegs, bottle tops or pieces of lego (any sort of counters) and a deck of cards (2-10, picture cards not needed. If you don’t have a deck of cards you can write out the numbers on pieces of paper). Shuffle the cards and ask your child to choose one. Whatever number is on the card is the number of pieces of lego/pegs/bottle tops they must count out.
Below is a fun song which the children enjoy. It focuses on counting up as far as 20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr-L6q4vbWU