Number Words

One of the things I have noticed over the last few years working with my boys on both phonics and math is that number words are hard!

It goes a little like this:

Me:   This is the word “ONE”.

Child:   But shouldn’t it start with a “W”?

Yes, that would make more sense, but it starts with a “O”.   This is the word “TWO”.

Why is the “W” there?   Can’t we just use that “W” in “One”?

I give up!   It doesn’t make sense and don’t even get me started on the spelling of “FOUR”!

This year I again have a Kindergartner, so I decided to add a daily activity to our Math Meeting to overcome the number word challenge.

Teaching Children Numbers

1. I started by creating a word document with large type with numbers listed on the left and then with the same size font spelled out the number words.
2. Then I printed them out and pasted the numbers onto left-over scrapbook paper and cut the number words into slips of paper.
3. I then laminated both the number board and the number word cards.
4. Then Velcro was attached to the back of the word cards.

If I had to do it over again, I would not laminate it because then the Velcro doesn’t stick well and we ended up using the sticky portion of the Velcro, not the Velcro-y portion which just seems like a waste of perfectly good Velcro.

I love that Rhett(5) can do this activity by himself.   He works on it for awhile and may have a question or two, but likes to figure it out on his own.   This is a big step since he hasn’t gotten the hang of sounding words out yet so he is using a mixture of first letter sounds and sight word recognition.

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We’ll get there.   One day, till then, we are enjoying out homemade DIY learning resources.