Numbers Are Everywhere: Counting the World Around You

Look down at your feet right now — how many toes do you have? Look at your hand — how many fingers? Count the windows in your room, the stairs you climb, the wheels on a bike. Numbers are hiding everywhere, and today you get to go find them.

In this lesson you will: Count a group of objects and say how many there are. Name basic shapes: circle, square, triangle, and rectangle. Find and continue a simple pattern. Spot numbers and shapes in the real world around you.

When you count, you touch or point to each object one time and say one number. If you have 5 crayons in a box, counting them one by one — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — tells you there are 5 crayons total. The last number you say is the answer! Try counting your shoes, your pockets, or the buttons on your shirt.

A circle is round with no corners, like a clock or a wheel. A square has 4 sides that are all the same length, like a napkin folded flat. A triangle has 3 sides, like a slice of pizza. A rectangle has 4 sides, but two are longer than the other two, like a door or a book. Once you know shape names, you will spot them everywhere — stop signs, pizza slices, doors, and clocks.

A pattern repeats in a way you can predict. Red, blue, red, blue, red... what comes next? Blue! Clap, stomp, clap, stomp... what comes next? Stomp! Patterns can be colors, sounds, shapes, or even numbers like 2, 4, 6, 8. Finding the pattern means figuring out the rule and using it to guess what comes next.