The second activity I shared was to count on by ones and put one more acorn into the next cup and then the cup before it had. We discovered that the cups would only hold five acorns. Rather than continue to do this activity using the ice cube tray we moved on to another type of container.
Then I asked him to put one acorn in the first liner, two in the second liner, and so on. When he had ten acorns in the last cup, I explained to him that all the cups with spider webs on them were odd numbers. That means that 1,3, 5, 7, and 9 are odd numbers. The even numbers were in the liners with the leaf design. That means that 2,4,6, and 8 are even numbers.
I wanted him to get the idea that the even and odd numbers follow an ab pattern. After looking at the cups carefully, he was able to explain to me which cups were even and which were odd and why. In the event nut cups, each nut has a buddy. In the odd nut cups, one nut is leftover.
A Book with a Nut Theme
Earl decides he needs to prove his mom wrong and that he can do it on his own. By the end of the book, he does learn to find nuts on his own. It isn’t easy. There is a large bull in a field that contains a tree with nuts. Earl has to figure out a way to get the nuts poured down and get past the bull.
Earl the Squirrel is a book filled with adventure, challenges, and tender moments. We loved this fun tale by the author Corduroy and I bet you will too.
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The Dose of Reality says
What a cute idea!! We have a giant oak tree that covers over a good part of our driveway. With acorns from that alone, we would have supplies for math activities for our whole block. Earl the Squirrel sounds great (and we love Don Freeman!) –Lisa
Lisa @ Two Bears Farm says
What a great way to learn math! We have no shortage of acorns around.
Keitha says
What a great fine motor activity! Earl the Squirrel’s cover photo looks like he is a squirrel who gets up to a bunch of mischief. We will have to look for this book.
mail4rosey says
What a fun way to teach Math! We have acorns all over our front yard. Either a squirrel or a chipmunk stores them in the A/C box of my car every year and I have to take it in to the mechanic to get it emptied, lol. Silly squirrels. 🙂
Jeanette Nyberg says
Cool! I love the chopsticks idea, too. We need to go acorn-hunting; I haven’t seen many around here.
Tamara Camera says
We love Earl the Squirrel very much. He looks very cute in his red scarf. Scarlet is always collecting acorns to count. Interesting about the motor control of holding chopsticks – I didn’t learn how to hold them to eat until I was in my 20’s but now that skill is here to stay!
Natalie F says
I simply love acorns – wish we had a tree like this. Great activity to practice number sense and counting!
Emma @ P is for Preschooler says
I didn’t know elastics helped make chopsticks easier! I love how you used a material from nature to work on math!
Mia says
I love how you have math, a picture book and fine motor all combined in this great activity! You truly are a gifted teacher!!! Mia (PragmaticMom)
Carolyn Wilhelm says
Pinned! Excellent, educational, child-centered, hand-s on. Fine motor included