A great way to incorporate movement and practice memory recall with numbers!
The number line is a very simple game that invites the children to use their whole bodies. As you know, young children learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process and this definitely gets them involved.
Beginning the Game
To begin our number line game, the children each picked a number card. I used tape to create a number line on the floor and we placed the number “0” on the first line on the floor so the children could see that no one stands on the number zero because zero means nothing!
Incorporating Movement
Okay, so sometimes we stood on the zero – it depends on how good of a job I did explaining the idea but hopefully you get the idea. Then as I sang a song, the children danced around the room.
Working Together
When I came to the end of my song, the children all ran back to the number line to find their spot. They had to work together to make sure everyone was in correct numerical order.
Then off we the children went again to dance around until I stopped singing. What did I sing? Well, I made up a little tune that I honestly don’t remember now. It was just made up like “Let’s all dance around the room, let’s have a really good time. Dance around till your all mixed up now stand on the number line.”
The children didn’t care about the song as much as getting to dance all around until I stopped singing. Then everyone rushed back to get in line.
As you can tell, we did this in small groups but these children did so well, that they could easily do this as a whole group. Hmmm, I think we will give that a try this week!