Our focus during small groups today was one to one correspondence and number recognition of numbers zero through twenty.
Understanding the one-to-one correspondence of object to object is necessary before a child can carry out meaningful counting and higher calculations.
Children can find many opportunities in their daily life to experience one-to-one correspondence. They can place one sock inside one shoe or one shoe on one foot; they can get one napkin or snack for each member of the family or class; they can place one lid on each of several containers; they can place pieces in one-piece puzzles.
Many experts believe that rote memorization of a set of numbers is meaningless. Once children understand the relationship of one to one correspondence, they can link one number with one object and then count with understanding.
