Lego Numbers – Easy Counting Activity

Table of Contents:

1. Grab those Legos – let’s make an easy counting activity!
2. The Secret Piece to Learning Numbers
3. An easy counting activity to teach quantity.
4. Don’t worry about my Legos – they’re all clean now!
5. A perfect easy counting activity!
6. Will you try Lego numbers at your house?

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Grab those Legos – let’s make an easy counting activity!

I am a “kid counting” junky. I love listening to those little voices count on and on, mispronouncing numbers and (of course) skipping a few too. 

But even once they’ve mastered counting to 10 or 20 or 30, I know that’s not the most important part.

Do you know what’s even more important than memorizing numbers?

The Secret Piece to Learning Numbers

There is so much emphasis put on “how high” a child can count, but I know better. I know what they really need to know how to do.

What is this magical, secret piece?

Counting objects and knowing the quantity. Also known as, being able to answer “how many is that?”.

Because that’s where the real learning is. That’s where the understanding of numbers is! Let me put this in letter terms. My son learned his letters by his second birthday. Doesn’t mean he can read. Doesn’t mean he can decode a word. He just knows that’s the letter Aa.

Counting is similar. Just because your child knows how to count to 10 from memory, that doesn’t mean they can necessarily count out 10 objects. That’s a whole other skill. And a crazy important one.

An easy counting activity to teach quantity.

My son is newly 4. He loves numbers, he loves counting, so we’ve started working on the all important “how many?” side of numbers. How many is 4? How many is 10?

I made a simple activity for him to practice with using one of his favorite toys: Legos. Anything Legos is always a hit for us so I knew he’d be down for this.

Materials:

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• Lego Duplos
• Sharpie marker
• Hand sanitizer
• Scrubby sponge

I quickly grabbed out 20 Legos. On 10 of them, I wrote the numbers 1 – 10. On the other 10, I made dots to represent “how many” for each of those numbers. My son’s job: match the number to the quantity.

Don’t worry about my Legos – they’re all clean now!

I know you are probably having a slight panic over me drawing on my Legos with a Sharpie marker. Is she nuts? Is she crazy?

I knew just how to get the Sharpie off so I wasn’t worried one bit.

There’s a secret trick to getting Sharpie to erase. I use it all the time!

All you need is hand sanitizer and a scrubby sponge. The Sharpie will come right off of those Legos. Obviously, this trick isn’t going to work on your dining room table or the carpet, but it does work on slick surfaces (like Legos or cookie sheets). Test it before hand to make sure it’ll work for you!

A perfect easy counting activity!

I loved this counting activity – it was just right for my four year old. He matched up all 20 Legos, but I didn’t clean them right away. I saved them in a plastic bag for the week and left them near the toy bin. I caught he many times playing Lego numbers on his own!

This easy counting activity couldn’t have been better and it was perfect for practicing such an important math skill.

Will you try Lego numbers at your house?