Learning Equivalence
Aims
This activity is designed to:
- teach your child that if they share items equally, then they only need to count one set to know how many items are in the other set
When to start
This activity is suitable for children who have completed Activity 5A - Giving a Number and can successfully give numbers up to 4 from a larger set.
You can teach your child to share twice as many items as they can count. For example, if your child can count to 5, you can teach them to share up to 10 items.
Teaching in small steps
At first, start by teaching your child to share 2. Steadily increase the size of the sets.
Modelling and prompting
At first, model the activity. Work through the steps in the activity, encouraging your child to watch.
When modelling sharing, first give a counter to one animal then give a counter to the next animal, continuing until all the counters have been shared. For example, if sharing 4 items, give 1 to the first animal, 1 to the second animal, 1 to the first animal and 1 to the second animal. Do not give 2 to the first animal before giving 1 to the second animal. This will help to illustrate the process of sharing items equally.
When your child begins the activity, prompt them as needed to help them complete the task successfully.
Steadily reduce your prompts as your child progresses.
Instructions
| 1 | Set out the cards | |
[Cards]: Place two bear (or monkey) cards side by side. Place an even number of cookie (or banana) cards below the animal cards. ::: |
[Apps]: From the Main Menu screen, select Activities > Learning Cardinality > Learning Equivalence. Then select the quantity to share. Start with 2. The app will display the corresponding animal and counter cards on the screen. ::: |
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| 2 | Ask the child to share the items Ask your child to share the cookies (or bananas) with the animals. Point to both animals and say "share the [cookies] with the [bears]" Encourage your child to place an equal number of cookies (or bananas) on each animal card. Model or prompt, as necessary. If your child places too many items on an animal card, place the excess item(s) below the cards and encourage them to try again. |
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| 3 | Ask your child if the animals have got the same Say "do the [bears] have the same?" If your child is unsure, prompt by saying "yes - the [bears] have the same". |
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| 4 | Ask how many the first animal has Point to the first of the animal cards and say "how many does this [bear] have?" Encourage your child to count how many cookies (or bananas) the animal has. If prompting, confirm the count - say "the bear has [one]" Praise your child for the correct answer - "yes, the [bear] has [one]". |
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| 5 | Ask how many the next animal has Point to the next animal card and say "how many does this [bear] have?" Praise your child for the correct answer - "yes, this [bear] has [one]". If your child begins to count the items before answering, let them count them and tell you how many. Praise them for the correct answer and point out that this is the same as the first animal has - say "yes, this [bear] has [one] - both bears have the same - [one]" |
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| 6 | Repeat the activity Reset the cards, repeating steps 1 to 5. Repeat up to 5 times in a single session or until your child is able to tell you the number of items the second animal has without counting them, at least twice. When your child is able to tell you the number of items the second animal has without counting them, at least twice, you can move on to the next quantity to share (see below). |
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:::Apps settings
The apps include the following settings that control how the activity is presented:
- Animal/counter type - selects whether to share cookies between bears or bananas between monkeys.
- Repetitions - sets the number of times to repeat the request to share each set.
- Enable applause - enables/disables playing applause at the end of the activity.
Recording progress
You can record your child's progress using the Learning Cardinality record.
Enter the dates your child first started to learn and first succeeded in giving numbers from each sequence of numerals (Figure 9).
Figure 9 | Example Learning Cardinality record
Progressing through the numbers
When to introduce the next number
When your child can correctly tell you the number of items the second animal has without counting them, at least twice, you can move on to the next quantity to share. For example, when your child can share 2 items equally and tell you the second animal has 1, then they can start to learn to share 4 items.
You can teach your child to share twice as many items as they can count. For example, if your child can count to 5, you can teach them to share up to 10 items.
Opportunities for additional practice and generalisation
It is important that your child learns that they can count any items - not just the counters they first learn to count with.
When your child is successful with one set of counter cards (for example, cookies) you can introduce the other set of counter cards (for example, bananas).
You may also find other sets of items from around the house or classroom. You could ask your child to share items into two boxes, let them count the items in one box and ask them how many are in the second box without being able to see inside.
With the app, you can switch between the bear and cookies and the monkey and bananas.
Moving on to See and Learn Sums
See and Learn First Sums is the third step in See and Learn Numbers. It is designed to teach children to add, subtract, multiply and divide with numbers and quantities from 1 to 10. See and Learn First Sums is also designed to teach children more about the number system, including the relative sizes of these numbers, ordinality and inversion. It also teaches the language needed at this stage of number learning.
See and Learn First Sums is suitable for children who know the number words one to ten, can count up to 10, can share equal quantities from a larger set and give smaller quantities from a larger set. Children who have successfully completed See and Learn First Counting will have learned these skills.
