St Patrick’s Montessori Counting Cards

St Patrick’s Day-inspired Montessori counting cards are a fun hands-on way to explore numeracy, advance fine motor control and improve hand-eye coordination in preschoolers and kindergartners.

There is no better way to learn than through hands-on exploration and manipulation of materials! Besides, utilizing different tools, even if with the same printable, adds novelty and sparks a new interest! You can apply techniques used with St Patrick’s Montessori Counting Cards to any count-and-clip cards or activities! And remember to allow little people to engage in kinesthetic learning by doing! Hands-on learning is the common name for ‘Experiential Learning’ ~ the philosophical term behind the method of immersing oneself in a process to learn it.

What is Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning has been around since 350 BCE, when Aristotle wrote, “for the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” Most importantly, hands-on learning is uniquely positioned to support or elevate ANY type of learner! Best of all, research has proven that children who learn using hands-on methods with manipulatives outperform those who are not. What are manipulatives? They are physical tools engaging children visually and physically! The use of manipulatives is constructive because children are actively engaged in discovery by dotting, finger-painting, transferring, touching, and manipulating during the learning process.

All of the activities are part of St Patrick’s Montessori Kids Activity pack! Check out below!

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St Patrick’s Montessori Counting Cards

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What the hand does, the mind remembers!

Dr. Montessori

So offer little hands to dot, clip, finger paint, manipulate and count! Children learn BEST when they are involved in what they are doing!
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St.☘️Patrick’s Kids COUNTING Activities by PAGE

• PAGE 22-25: [AGE 2 Y+] Montessori 1-12 COUNTING CARDS ~ Invite a child to use clothespins, a stamp, dry-erase marker or a finger dipped in paint to mark the correct number among the (3) listed. The total number of objects counted ~ a cardinal number ~ represents the corresponding quantity of objects pictured. (With children age 2 YR + start with cards one through three ONLY! Then slowly add cards as a child masters numeral to quantity association.)
• PAGE 26: Common Core State Standards
• PAGE 27: One-To-One Correspondence ~ ROTE vs RATIONAL counting
• PAGE 28: [AGE 2 Y+] DOT THE CLOVER | NUMERACY ~ Use dot markers, finger paint or pom pom dabbed in the paint to count and dot each clover. (We are using THESE paints.) INVITE YOUR CHILD TO TOUCH EACH as s/he COUNTS ALOUD, which connects counting to cardinality.

These St Patrick’s Montessori Counting Cards are fantastic for practicing numeral-to-quantity association, number recognition and sequencing, RATIONAL COUNTING, One-to-One correspondence, and exploring cardinal numbers.

Holding a pom pom with a peg adds an additional twist to mastering fine motor control. However, feel free to skip the peg and offer to stamp with a pom pom using your thumb, index, and middle finger, while modeling a proper pincer grip. For even smaller ones (2 YR+), offer to finger paint! Dotting a circle is an amazing fine motor exercise!

You can also purchase the Count-And-Clip Cards separately below!

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TIPS AND HACKS TO USE St Patrick’s Montessori Counting Cards

• To laminate, you can use an IRON instead of a laminating machine. (I am using these thermal laminating pouches.) HOW: set your iron at a low temperature, as if you would iron silk. To be safe, place cardstock OVER the laminating sheet and iron over it. (See HERE how I used an IRON to make a flower bookmark.)
• Alternatively, with a DOT-A-CLOVER page, you can use sheet protectors and insert your page into it and use a dry-erase marker. 
• Corners can be pointy, so I love using a corner rounder.
• For a quicker and more precise straight cutting, I am using a paper trimmer instead of scissors.
• Buy rainbow dot markers HERE Or buy similar on Amazon HERE.

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ROTE VERSUS RATIONAL COUNTING

According to Common Core Math standards, kindergarteners are expected to know cardinality, quantitive analysis, RATIONAL Counting, one-to-one correspondence, counting to 100, and much more! Can they learn ALL THAT while they are kindergarteners? No way!
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The solution is to start while they are preschoolers!! And start by teaching rational counting early on! Rational counting is a learned ability to match an object to a corresponding numeral and recognize that numbers are merely symbols to represent a quantity! Young children often learn “ROTE counting” without understanding one-to-one correspondence! Little ones might learn to count to ten just like a heart-learned poem! But if you were to ask them numerals out of numerical order, they might be confused. To learn RATIONAL counting, have them TOUCH and COUNT ALOUD each OBJECT as they match quantity to its corresponding numeral.

Have you used St. Patrick’s Montessori Counting Cards? Leave a comment if you did!

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St Patrick’s ☘️ Hands-on Strip Puzzle Pack

If you purchased 46-PAGE St. Patrick’s PACK, only pages 4, 5, 8, and 11 are new, so print only those.

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♡ Enriching the Mind one Heart at a time ♡