Teaching Counting On Fingers

This is one way that I teach counting in a sequence to early childhood students. I use my fingers to teach them to count to ten, and I model counting first. We count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I might do that a couple of times just, so the children get used to counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. After we practice a few times as a whole group, I would then have the children turn to a partner and count the partners fingers. And, the fingers would be spread out, and so that all the child had to do was points. So, they would point one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Then, I would ask them, boys and girls how many fingers does your partner have? And they would say ten. And I would say, oh you are so smart. You did that so well. Let’s count your own fingers. All the fingers in the classroom would come up, and they would go through the sequence again. And, I would say at the end, boys and girls, how many fingers do you have? And they would say ten. And we would come to the conclusion that everybody in the room had ten fingers. To finish up this whole group activity, we could sing a little song. One little, two little, three little fingers. Four little, five little, six little fingers. Seven little, eight little, nine little fingers, ten little fingers in a row. And this is one way that I would teach counting to my early childhood students.