When did your babies learn numerals and quantities?

I would like to ask you how long did it take you to teach your babies numerals and quantities… I’ve been working with LM and playing games with my twins for 4 months now. They are 16 months old by now. The girl recognizes numerals up to four and can (sometimes) also recognize quantities… 1 and 2 for sure, 3 and 4 I’m not sure if she really knows or it is just a coincidence (the boy speaks much less than her, so I have no idea about what he is learning). But they seem to progress more on reading, so I was wondering if I should be doing something else…
Any advice will be welcome, thanks a lot!

I wouldn’t worry too much - I used Doman dots and LM and my son never really showed that it taught him anything other than an interest in numbers. :slight_smile: Keep going and maybe one day they will amaze you :smiley:

I would say your goal at this age is to make maths as fun as possible and not worry about what they do or don’t show that they know. Practice putting the correct quantity of cars/dolls/cheerios/whatever under the correct numeral, and counting by touching objects (ie. not just saying the number, but recognising that it means something). These are very important skills to work on.

I have one of those foam floor mats with the numbers 0-20 which is great fun - we can put it out like a number line and jump up and down, or set it out as a mat and ‘find’ the correct number to stand on - endless numeral-learning games :slight_smile:

You are right Mummyroo, sometimes I forget about just teaching and not focusing on output… :blush:

I have no idea when my first DD started recognising them though my 22 month old is not yet although I did catch her counting 6 objects out loud once in her life a couple of months back. I know when my oldest was 27 months old we’d read all the numbers of houses we walked past and she could count objects to 5 around the same age. Just keep playing with them and keep counting everything - don’t worry about them showing you what they can do - just presume they are learning something.

James knew his numerals 0-9 well before he was 2. He could also subtitize a bit. He didn’t learn to actually count until well after 2. Maybe closer to 3. He was way older than my other friends kids, but they never learnt numerals.
James only learnt numerals 10+ and how to count beyond 10 right when he turned 3.

With James is wasn’t about what he understood it was about what I chose to teach him, when I taught him and how often. . Back to the old adage. Input input input.

Thank you very much for your comments, I really need to keep the “input” issue in mind! But it is tough to teach them every day and not knowing if you’re doing right…

Thanks again!

If you are teaching something, anything every day, then you are doing it right! :yes:
Put a sign up in your house as a reminder " input, input, input.
For a laugh I will tell you when I studied education, in our math tutorial I was told children are expected to pick up one to one correspondence sometime before age 8! That means being able to touch an object once and count it once. Yep even then I couldn’t believe the expectations were so low. I had a 2 year old and a 4 year old at the time that were able to do more math than the test example they handed out! And I apparently had the smartest kid in the classes test! Sigh.
I recal one of my kids learning numerals before 2 up to 6 I think, one learnt them at 3 and my boy learnt them up to 30 at age 4 ( slow start caught up fast! lol ) all of them could count at least to 10 before they were 3, they usually counted to 20 but missed 14 ( yes its always 14!!!)

Hello, I have been using LR and LM with my little girl since she was 8 months old (she is 20 months now). She can identify numbers till 15 , but cant connect it to quantity although I think she gets the quantity 1 and 2 right more than 50% of the time. I have tried flash cards and blocks too, but that didnt help very much.

With LR, reading and stories she is racing ahead. With music she enjoys its -loves ballet and can watch it for an hour.

My question is that should I keep going ahead with the Maths lessons or should i keep repeating them?

Regards
Ishan

lol Manda - with my son it was always 15 (until he learned the counting song at the beginning of the Kathy Troxel addition songs).

We are working on numeral and quantity with my 3 year old. He recognises (definitely) up to 5, though sometimes gets 5&2 confused.

IshanBhalla - if your LO is loving LM then I would continue with the lessons, but perhaps add in the separate quantity sections for more practice. At her age she might prefer to see the numbers in a grid to make quantity recognition easier.

Try working on quantity games, also. I am teaching my son to make a number line and then add the correct quantity of buttons under each numeral (using raisins or cheerios makes it extra fun). We started with 0-3 and have progressed to 0-5 in the last week. Hopefully in a month or two he’ll be able to make a full 0-20 line :smiley: As your girl knows the numbers, this shouldn’t be too much of a challenge for her to put the cards down, and you can help count each object (practising one-to-one correspondence). Start easy and build up slowly.

Yes I agree continue with the lesson on LM. Remember we are aiming for IMPUT!
On top of that I would start counting everything! Count toys, plates, spoons, washing, shoes, socks, start with small amounts and be sure to touch everything you count. This is what I used to do. I often counted as I set the table and always counted the buttons on their cloths as I did them up. Not by my choice but my children ALL insisted on counting every set of stairs we walked up and down! They still do it! :mad:

my daughter started counting up to five by 10 months. now she is 18 months, n she counts up to 11 n can count back wards too.