I set Finn the challenge of doing a treasure hunt around the house, collecting and counting items to make the numbers 1 to 20.

Resources

  • Any house hold items

Method

This activity was entirely independent. Finn raided the art supplies, kitchen drawers and shoe rack. He started off with loose parts: buttons, syringe adaptors, pine cones, mini logs, vase crystals, Grimm’s mushrooms and Grapat loose part toys.

The further through the numbers he got, the more he enjoyed displaying the number with the ‘treasures’ he found.

When it was time to tidy up, Finn didn’t mind at all. He was just happy there was another chance to count everything back in to it’s place.

You could also give your child the camera, with the challenge of photographing their ‘treasures’ themselves.

DfES Early Learning Goals (2017)

Mathematics

ELG 11 – Numbers:

Children count reliably with numbers from 1 to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number. Using quantities and objects, they add two single-digit numbers and count on to find the answer.