Teaching with the Counting Board

Teaches the meaning of numbers; understanding quantity; number names; numerals (number symbols); sequencing; counting; and relationships between numbers: more and less, before and after, in between, one more.

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The teacher points to the space where a four-block would fit and asks the students, who each hold two different number blocks, 'who has the block that fits here?'

Discovering Size Relationships

The awareness of relationships plays a central role in productive thinking. By fitting the blocks into the proper grooves, children become familiar with the relationships in the number sequence. (This and the next three sketches are from Experimenting with Numbers).


Learning to Count - Identifying Blocks by Their Number Names

In this illustration, children are learning the number names. Children progress through the same sequence as they do in learning to talk. First, meaning is developed through actions and the perception of visual relationships; then in later experiments, the number names are introduced with the blocks. The children rapidly learn the number names and associate them with quantities represented by the blocks.

The teacher insructs a child to 'stand up four' which sits inside the tray.

The teacher instructs a child to pick a number, tell where it goes in the tray, and put it there. The child picks three.

Introducing Number Symbols 1 to 10

The number symbols from 1 to 10 are introduced by attaching the number guide to the counting board and asking the children to match the symbols on the markers with the identical symbol on the number guide.


Learning to Associate the Number Block with the Number Symbol

Children indicate their recognition by drawing a line from the block to its symbol.
(A page from Structural Arithmetic Workbook I.)

The number blocks are pictured ouside the tray and children are instructed to draw a line in the workbook from the number block to where it fits in the tray

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