Two and a half year old Finn is obsessed with counting, numbers and Numberblocks. He loves acting out scenes from Numberblocks, using our duplo blocks as the characters.

Resources

  • Duplo blocks
  • Numberblocks characters from CBeebies magazine

The Terrible Twos

Finny started off setting out the Duplo bricks as his characters. He asked me to go to sleep because he was preparing to play ‘The Terrible Twos”. This is an episode from Numberblocks Series 1. Numberblocks is available on BBC iplayer, but the episodes come and go.

The Terrible Twos are saying, “Tickle tickle, tickle tickle!” Then when the Numberblocks ask, “Is someone there?” The Terrible Twos reply, “Not someone, some twos and we are both here to say BOO!” The Numberblocks are so shocked their numbers separate in to ones.

He moved on to numbers 6 and 7. Toddlers often have trouble keeping track of the numbers they are counting, often counting the same object more than once. I showed him how to move each block to count it, rather than just pointing to them.

Again, the Terrible Twos woke up another Numberblock. He needed to recount his number 9.

This time Finny chose to do some counting backwards. He was also starting to get better at counting up to 10, one block at a time.

He finished off with cuddles and kisses for the baby bump. He already likes teasing his baby brother or sister, who he has named Squirt after one of the dragons in Mike the Knight. Here he was teasing saying “I like Squirt this much…” and holding his fingers close together. Then saying, “I like him this much!” with his arms outstretched. Squirt often gets called “he” because we’re so used to boys that we can’t imagine anything else.

DfES Early Years Outcomes (2013)
Mathematics

Number – 22 to 36 months

  • Selects a small number of objects from a group when asked, for example, ‘please give me one’, ‘please give me two’.
  • Recites some number names in sequence.

Number – 36 to 50 months

  • Uses some number names and number language spontaneously.
  • Uses some number names accurately in play.
  • Knows that numbers identify how many objects are in a set.
  • Shows an interest in number problems.
  • Shows an interest in representing numbers.

Number – 40 to 60+ months

  • Counts up to three or four objects by saying one number name for each item.
  • Counts objects up to 10