"Pick it. Lick it. Stick it."

My boy is smart. He can count to forty, no problem. He can count to 100 using a hundred number chart. He can count by 10s to one hundred, and has almost mastered counting by 5s. But my sweet little dude has a hard time recognizing 8 & 9 in isolation.

We practice every day that we pick up sister at the hop scotch spot. I say a number and he jumps to it, but it's always hit or miss on 8 & 9.

So we practiced some more.

I got out the deck of face cards, only picking Ace - Ten. Then I had Jack place them in proper number order, I talked about least to greatest. Nothing too deep, because we were just introducing it.

Then we played a number version of the Hedbanz game. We mixed up the cards, and placed them face down. Then, we had to PICK a card, so that you could NOT see your own card, LICK the card and finally, STICK that card on your own forehead. See where Jack came up with "Pick it. Lick it. Stick it."

The next step was that each person had to count out cubes to make the exact amount of what is on your neighbor's card on their forehead. (Important step!) By doing this, you are practicing counting and number recognition. It also allows you to determine exactly which number is sticking to your own forehead. (I hope that made sense, because it DID to me! Ha, but I played it, so I already know how to do it.)

Once we figured out our cards, then we placed them down with the cubes underneath. They were NOT in order.

At the very end of going through all ten cards, Jack was able to better visualize the LEAST to GREATEST talk we had at the beginning of our game. He could see that one cube was definitely smaller (less) than ten (greater). He placed them in order Ace first ALL the way to 7. We didn't make it all the way to ten.

It was a great activity, until Jocelyn destroyed our cubes. :) Cute girl just wanted to play. She likes learning like her brother and sister do.