Twenty-one mats, one for each number from 0 to 20, to use with real loose parts rather than a pencil. Each mat has a big outline numeral to trace round with a finger or to line with pebbles, buttons or beads; the number word; a ten frame with spaces big enough for one real object each; and a large space, "Make it your way", where children build the number however they like: in a line, a circle, a tower, a face. The mats for 11 to 20 have two ten frames, so children fill the first one and see how many more. The 0 mat has an empty ten frame and an empty dish, and asks what zero looks like. The small dish of loose parts on each mat is only an invitation to start; it is not part of the count.
Put two or three mats on an invitation table with baskets of loose parts: smooth pebbles, buttons, shells, acorns, glass gems, bottle caps. Let children choose their materials and their number. Listen and ask rather than correct: How do you know there are seven? Can you make seven another way? What did your friend do? Photograph the "Make it your way" spaces, write the child's words beside the photo, and you have documentation of how each child thinks about number. Slide the mats into sheet protectors and they last all year.
Gather a bowl of things from a walk or the kitchen drawer: pebbles, pasta shapes, buttons, bottle caps. Pick a mat together and fill the ten frame, then make the number on the open space in your child's own way. Count them back together, then mix them up and count again: still the same number? On the 0 mat, talk about what zero means: an empty plate, no socks on, nobody in the room.
This pack supports the following Common Core State Standards for Mathematics:
© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
Reggio-inspired number mats for 0 to 20, made to be filled with real pebbles, buttons, shells and other loose parts. Children line the big numeral, fill the ten frame and then build the number their own way, so every mat can be done many times and never the same.
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