Your child will jump at the chance to be a pretend frog! Make lily pads out of paper and spread them on the floor. Using a regular deck of cards, draw a card. Have your child read the number and then hop on that number of "lily pads." Take a turn yourself! Who will be the first to hop all the way across the "pond?"
By hopping the number of spaces shown on the card, children make the connection that written numbers represent an amount or quantity.
Try to visit a pond near you! Take some time to observe the birds, fish, and frogs at the pond. How do they move differently? Which move the fastest? The slowest?
Write the numbers 1-10 on the lily pads before playing the game.
Draw two number cards. Encourage your child to add the numbers together and hop the sum of the two numbers.
“A Frog Thing” by Eric Drachman
Play the game again, but this time ask, “Who do you think will land closer to the starting point?” When comparing the numbers drawn from the deck, ask questions such as, “Who has the greater number?” “Who has the smaller number?” “How do you know?”
