Counting Hearts

(Open Ended Play)

It’s super easy to set-up and helps little ones familiarize, recognize and memories numbers, color pink and heart shape.

Materials:

-a heart shaped footprints, optional

-heart shaped pink paper cuts

-filling (we used dried flageolet beans)

-a toy (we used tractor car)

-a container

Instruction:

-present the materials in front of your toddler

-ask your toddler to count the heart on the tray

-let your toddler explore freely

We introduced number to Y since she was around two years when she started to get interested to numbers. We took it slow and simply let her grow her interest. She used to make certain sounds while concentrating on doing sensory play. Nowadays numbers substitute most of those certain sounds. We provide 20 heart shaped paper cut because she is already count up to 100 these days. Since one to twenty is her safe numbers, this is a game for her to have fun with.

We made a heart footprint art last night and now that it’s dried, we’d like to use it as a background. It reminded of our good time earlier night together. We put the tray on the floor. Once she saw those footprints she directly tried it on her own real foot. She recognize and try to compare them. “Foot! Foot! Foot!” she said. The heart footprint part is only optional.

I asked her while pointing one of the part buried heart paper cut, “Do you know what shape is this?” She would pinched it using her fingers and shouted “Heart!”

“What color is it?”

“Pink!”

I asked her more to begin the game, “Shall we count the heart on this tray?”

We don’t really give her much limitation. After that she’s basically free to explore. She would count from one to whichever she please. She would put half the heart shape on the container, only to pour them back over to the beans.

She would use the tractor blade to clear some beans out of certain area and also to make a pile up of buried hearts under mountain of dried beans. She used the tractor as a shovel to dig while sitting on the floor and later pour the dried beans while standing up. She picked up some beans using her fingers, dumped it on the back of the tractor, over and over, while also counting how many times she did it. Oh how much she loved this!

What is my kiddo learning?

-Numbers (recognizing, memorizing, naming, counting)

-Fine motor skills (peeling the heart paper cut off the tray, grab, pour and pinching the dried beans)

-Independency (this activity is perfect for independent play, quiet time, as a boredom buster or busy activity)

#toddler #heart #pink #count #openendedplay