Understanding Zero: Cups and Beans

This is one way that I teach the concept of zero to early childhood children. I take some cups and I number the cups zero, one, two and three. Then, I have the children count with me as we put beans into the cups. So, zero is nothing so there are no beans in this cup, then we would count one. One, two. One, two, three. Then I would ask the students, “Boys and girls, if I love beans, which cup would I want to have?” And hopefully, they would say three, because you see three has the most beans. And then I would say, “Boys and girls what if I hate beans? I do not like them at all. I never eat them. Which cup do I want?” Then the children would say, “Zero,” because there are no beans in that cup. They would not have to eat any beans at all. The next thing I would do with them is we would add two more cups. And hopefully, we’ve been counting enough by now to be able to do it with the children: zero, one, two, three, four and five. The children would then help me add the beans to the cup: one, two, three, four, and then one, two, three, four, five. I might change my question this time: “What if each bean was a mushroom? I really like mushroom on my pizza. Which cup would I want if they were mushrooms?” The boys and girls would hopefully say five, because that is the cup with the most beans. “But guess what? Some people don’t like mushrooms. Which cup would they want?” They would want the zero cup because zero means nothing. Zero cup is empty. No mushrooms to eat. I would continue this process until they have an understanding of zero, adding more cups, adding different items in the cups, and even playing with, maybe, candy. And this is the way I would teach the concept of zero to early childhood students.