Esther and William have just started getting homework from their Reception Class teacher

Some phonics work

And also some very basic maths

Esther, and particularly William, love numbers

And are very good at remembering number facts

They know, for example, all their number bonds to 10

They also know lots of mathematical vocabulary

They enjoy measuring work including capacity

And they love shapes

What they are not very good at

Is one to one correspondence when they are counting

I think this is linked to the reason that they find writing so hard

They have tiny hands and quite poor fine motor skills

William suffers the most as he is the smallest

I think this lack of motor skills comes from their age

Made worse by their prematurity

Those extra three months inside

Would have made such a difference!

So anyway

When Esther and William were sent a home a tiny A5 counting worksheet to complete

I knew they would find it hard

Not because they cannot count

But because the things they were being asked to count

Were too small

They needed to be counting with large pictures

Or better still practical resources

And so with it being Dinovember

We enrolled the help of our dinosaurs

Our very hungry dinosaurs

I set up the dinosaurs

Staring at some empty paper plates

I then put out a plate filled with rainbow speckled

White chocolate buttons

I gave Esther and William two dice

They took turns rolling the dice

Counting the spots on the dice to find their number

If they did not recognise the number straight away

And then counting out the right amount of chocolate buttons

On to their dinosaur’s plate

This physical manipulation of objects

Was a great way to practise the fine motor skills needed for writing

And counting small pictures accurately

Esther and William had no problems at all

Counting out the chocolate buttons

Being able to move them around the plates

And group the sweets in different ways

Meant we could talk about lots of different number concepts and facts

Including the number bonds to ten they are so very fond of!

William was keen to do more counting

With larger numbers

And so we went into the playroom

And collected all his toy dinosaurs together

He lined them up across the room and counted them

20

20 dinosaurs all in a row

He put them in pairs

We counted the pairs

10

How many dinosaurs?

Still 20

10 lots of 2 make 20

Now he is starting to count in 2s

William loves his numbers

But because of his size, his summer birthday and his prematurity

He needs to do everything big

And if there is some running and roaring involved?

Well, then that is all the better

Esther, William and I had great fun counting together

And, of course, we ate the chocolate buttons together when we were done