With just some blocks and a pair of dice, Henry practiced one to one correspondence counting, as well as building towers! And even a little bit of patterning, all on his own!
We did a similar activity with our blocks and ABC Mat as well, the dice were a new thing to Henry.
I had him start with just one die. Rolling a die is a new skill too!
He’d count the dots on that die after he rolled it. Then he’d stack a tower with that number of blocks. Counting as he built it. After he finished, he’d check his work, and count the blocks again. Counting practice three times over!
When he used just one die, he was also patterning as he built the towers. Completely on his own and showing me his pattern when he finished!
Once he got the hang of it with one die, he added the second. Working his way up to twelve. Counting wasn’t the problem, building the tower then became the problem. And he had to find a new way to do it. I love how he solved the problem by standing the blocks on their side, instead of end to end.
I completely intended this to be an activity for him to add on to the tower to build on large structure with each roll of the die. But Henry really liked to knock it down each time and start over.
Henry is 4.5 years old.
About Jamie Reimer
