Hope you all enjoy these number songs and activities. A lot of the focus during our numeracy sessions is about developing awareness of cause and effect, 1:1 correspondence and awareness that an object is still present, even if they can't see it! All of these things can be taught to your child through lots of play and sensory activities and I have included some number songs and suggestions to how you can teach the skill if you would like some more structured activities to do with your child. Each week I will give you suggestions as to activities that you can do with your child and will link number songs and rhymes around our topic.

Some examples of games you could play are:

• Play object hide and seek: Play with the toy with your child, after a few minutes tell your child it is 'your turn' and then hide the toy near to the child under a blanket. Encourage your child to find the hidden toy!
• Lots of noisy toys and moving toys - develop awareness that when the toy makes a sound/moves that they have caused that to happen. 
• Play with cars / trains etc rolling them down a ramp, putting one car on at a time. You can also develop turn taking skills through this activity.
• Putting toys / objects into boxes - encouraging your child to put one object in at a time. You could also count the objects with your child. 
• water play / messy play - put objects in water or messy play and encourage your child to take them out / put them in one at a time.
• Use toys to develop awareness of prepositions 'on', 'in', 'out', 'off' - e.g. Play with your child with a doll - model putting the doll 'on' a chair, verbalising to your child that that is what you are doing. After modelling, ask your child if they can put the doll 'on' the chair (if they put the doll anywhere but on the chair, just model to them again and telling them 'look, the doll is on the chair!' and restart activity.

Please don't feel as though you have to have lots of different resources, using any toys or things you have at home is perfect! 

Developing awareness of number:

Sing a number song with your child, counting the objects with them at the appropriate points in the song (you could either: Count for your child and tap the number amount on their body, e.g. 5 objects = 5 taps; you could encourage your child to count either along with you or independently; or you could ask your child to answer ‘how many’ - write numbers 1 - 5 on separate pieces of paper, give your child the choice of 2 numbers and encourage them to eye gaze towards their answer.