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Pretend play can give your child lots of chances to count and to learn
about shapes. You don't need special toys. Use things around the home.
When you pretend you can make things up. You can make up prices and sizes.
You can think of very big numbers. You can use all the ideas you have
about numbers and shapes, and you can talk about them.
Join in and play with your child.
Let him:
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tell you how much things cost
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tell you how tall the teddy is
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make up the rules.
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Shops
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Set up a supermarket on the kitchen table. You can use unopened
food packets and tins. Put price labels on. Write a pretend shopping
list. You can use real money and empty carrier bags. Stack the packets
and tins on the table.
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Useful questions
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How much does a tin of beans cost?
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Can you put three packets in my bag?
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What does this price label say?
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How much money shall I give you?
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Post Office
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You can use old envelopes and used stamps. Get some blank forms
from the post office. Make parcels from empty boxes and wrap the
boxes in newspaper. Use kitchen scales to weigh the parcels. Use
an empty box for posting letters and cut a slit in the top to push
the letters through. You could cut a small potato in half to make
a date stamper. Carve out a number and dip it in paint and print
with it.
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Useful questions
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Can you give me three stamps?
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Can you find our front door number on the form?
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Which parcel is heavier?
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How shall we fold this letter so that it fits
into the envelope?
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Cafe
Write a menu and make up prices. Use an old scarf as a tablecloth. Sit
teddies round the table and lay their places for them. Take down the orders
on a note pad. Make pretend food out of pictures on empty packets and
in magazines.
Useful questions
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Has everyone got a knife and a fork?
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How many pizzas shall I order?
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How much is a coke?
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Are there enough biscuits for everyone?
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Bus or train
Put chairs in a row to make the seats. Make tickets out of pieces of paper.
Put a big number on the bus. Use a round plastic tray or dish for the
steering wheel. In the train put a number on each seat. Make up a timetable
and post it up.
Useful questions
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How many people got off the bus? How many people are still
on the bus?
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Is this the number sixty-five bus?
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I want to go four stops. How much is that?
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How many more stops is it to the library?
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Hospital or clinic
Use teddies as patients. Take temperatures with a straw. Take blood pressure
with an old scarf and a balloon. Make plasters out of paper and bandages
out of old scarves. Weigh the baby on kitchen scales, or your child on
the bathroom scales. Stick a tape measure on the wall to find out how
tall the patient is. Use a straw to give injections. Write your child's
weight and height on a chart.
Useful questions
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Has his temperature gone up? How high is it now?
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How big a bandage do you need for teddy's arm?
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When is my next appointment?
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How many teaspoons of medicine?
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What will your child be learning?
Counting things
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They will know how to count out a number of things from a lot
of things.
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They will know how to stop counting at the right number.
Written numbers
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They will know what numbers are used for, on tickets, dates,
addresses and prices, thermometers and scales.
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Young children can begin to learn about higher numbers like
fifty, a hundred and a million.
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They can also have a go at writing numbers themselves.
Measuring things
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They will know about different measuring tools and what they
are used for. Young children are often interested in thermometers
and height charts although they will not understand how to read
them yet.
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Finding out about shapes
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They will know which things are the same shape.
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They can use shape words to talk about them.
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