Number Lines are super nifty!

This is going to be a quick post because Jeremy is out of town and my time is limited when it comes to things, like blogging!

*Here's a fun statistic! 

"People remember 10 percent of what they read, 20 percent of what they hear, 30 percent of what they see, 50 percent of what they see and hear, 70 percent of what they say, and 90 percent of what they say AND do!"*

Just some food for thought!

You gotta love the Dollar Tree, huh?  I bought this number chart there along time ago!  I decided to cut the chart apart and use it as a walking number line!

One day, Jackson and I got this out to see how many numbers it actually counted up to!  It went all the way to number 25 which made a LONG number line from our living room into our kitchen!  I stood back and "assessed" Jackson as he did this, realizing he knew his numbers verbally and visually up to 15...but then he started to get mixed up!  Perfect teaching moment for me and something so simple (and CHEAP) led me in the right instructional direction that I needed to go in order for Jackson to understand number order!

I was hoping that by picking up a number, walking it to the end of the number line while saying the number out loud, he would remember 90% of this lesson!  LOL  

But my point is for you to see how easy it is to teach in a fun way and a way they will remember the information!

I helped Jax finish up the number line so that it was all laid out, then we decided to add some trucks (part of my on-the-spot lesson/idea)  We started at the number 1 and just drove the car/truck to the number that I said!  For example "I am driving my bulldozer to the number 13! Can you drive your dumptruck to the number 14?"  After 25 trucks were lined up on our number line, we drove them back into the garage (aka basket)...but this time we started at the number 25 to introduce counting backwards!  My "teacher talk" was consistent and the same as when we counted up.  "I'm driving the red car that's on number 18 back to the garage!  See ya later number 18!"

After writing this post, I'm going to get this out next week and "informally assess" him again to see if we've made some gains on counting past 15!  I'll let ya know!

I wish I had video of this lesson, but it was a random lesson on a rainy day.  But I hope a few pictures and my crazy commentary gives you some ideas for using CHEAP number lines in a fun way!

Happy Learning with your Little Ones!