Any Good Counting Toys - 1 to 10?

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

Our 18 month old seems to be coming along nicely. She knows all the animals/objects in her books, knows the parts of her body and her colours. The next logical step would appear to be teaching her to count from 1-10. To that end I've been looking for something that has 10 separate pieces which I can use to help her get the hang of it but the only thing that isn't wildly expensive seems to be the below:

https://www.smythstoys.com/ie/en-ie/toys/pre-school-and-electronic-learning/peppa-pig/peppa-pig-count-with-peppa/p/167715

shesty

Do you know what would teach her just as well?Ten wooden blocks and a box.Lining up five rubber ducks on the side of the bath one by one and diving them in at each number.A book like "One Mole digs a Hole".It's not really the item that teaches them, it's you sitting there repeating it over and over and over with them.To be honest, they won't really understand quantities for a bit yet.So like she will be able to pick up the words "one, two three four five" pretty quick, and probably point pretty quick, but she won't relate three actual ducks to saying "three ducks" for another bit yet.

My first picked up her numbers because our minder used to scoop the powder into the bottle and count the scoops out each time, no.1 just repeated them after her.It's literally that simple.She had no clue that "five" meant five individual objects, but she was very impressive counting 1-5 at 15 months!!!!!!(her language skills were/are excellent, if I do say so myself :-) it's the listening skill that needs work!).

Otherwise we have this that they all loved:

https://www.smythstoys.com/ie/en-ie/toys/pre-school-and-electronic-learning/fisher-price/fisher-price-laugh-and-learn-cookie-shape-surprise/p/100557
Whether they learned much from it is debatable.
"One mole digs a hole", "one ted gets out of bed"are good books too.Counting her toes will help aswell, counting out bits of fruit like blueberries/raspberries etc.I admit my pair may have learned a surprising amount from Numtums on CBeebies, but I wouldn't push that as a learning tool!!!It does happen organically, to be honest, if you count and chat as you go about your day, so don't get too hung up on it.I haven't set out to teach mine anything, but they pick it up through daily interaction.

Kintarō Hattori

Thanks Shesty, that's a great reply. We actually have that toy, my sister got it for her ages ago so she's been playing with it for a while. We read to her all the time and I repeat everything obvious to her, for example when I'm changing her vest I say 'right arm, left arm' etc. Putting on her pants it's 'right leg, left leg' etc. I describe every day actions as we do them. I hear what you say bout the blocks- I've finally got a use for jenga blocks so!

Really I just want to keep her mentally active. She's become very familiar with her books and seems to know all the animals, objects etc. She's pretty good with colours too. When we have the books out she's point to have the text read to her rather than pointing at scenes or having the objects described to her. I'm trying to figure out what the next logical thing to teach her would be.

shesty

It's all in the books and the chat and counting out the toys I think.She's 18 months?Get her slightly more advanced books.We have "One Little Baby", they love that around 18 months because it's their day."Ten Little finger and ten little toes" is a favourite here too, and I think my eldest had started to touch on Julia Donaldson's ones around that age, but they can be a bit long-she is just exceptionally avid about language (my second was not, its taken her much longer!).Try "Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose", "My mum and dad make me laugh" "We're going on a Bear Hunt", "Each Peach Pear Plum" and maybe some of the Oliver Jeffers ones "Lost and Found", and "Stuck".Oliver Jeffers may be a bit advanced but the others should give a nice cross-section of stuff for her.(looking at two year old's bookshelf here!).I order stuff online at Book Depository.Oh "Owl Babies" is a lovely one too.

I'm trying to think do we have any specific counting toys but I don't think we do.I did a lot of counting fingers and toes while eating in the highchair with no.1, and our second likes to count out her ducks on the side of the bath.(she is far more numerically inclined than her sister-they are so different).They also both like to (ahem) stick a raspberry on the tip of each finger and count them out as they do it when eating raspberries (not my invention, all theirs!), among other things.

I know there are a lot of Vtech counting toys alright but they tend to be a bit pricey for what they are.

Edit: Just one other thing....sit and colour with her.Buy her some chunky crayons and paper, and sit and colour with her every day.It becomes a bonding thing and also improves their motor skills no end.Don't worry about pencil grip or whay she's doing just let her scribble away (emphasise only on paper and not on walls!!!) And get her some basic jigsaws-you can get some good orchard toys two and three piece jigsaw for her age or even some Thomas the tank or animal.ones in Smyths.Stick with the 2/3/4 piece ones and she can work up to bigger ones as she gets bigger.They teach invaluable motor skills and problem solving skills and how to sit and concentrate on something.Have done it with both mine and they always go back to them.Still do, at 2.5 and 4.5.

Cakerbaker

We got a set of 2 piece jigsaws from
M&S that had a number on one piece and a corresponding number of different animals on the other. Each pair was a different color too so they ticked a lot of boxes. My guy loved them and seemed to learn a lot from them.