How Children Build Their Understanding of Numbers

What's In This Kit?
This training kit introduces how children build their understanding of numbers during the early childhood years. It contains:

• Expected training outcomes
• Preparation instructions
• Training strategies and tips
• Implementation steps
• Follow-up activities for teachers
• Follow-up activities for administrators/directors
• A learning assessment
• A training evaluation/further needs assessment
• A resource list
• The article “How Children Build Their Understanding of Numbers” by David Elkind
• A training certificate to award to teachers for attendance and participation
• A certificate for the trainer and other presenters

Who's the Target Audience?
The target audience for this kit is beginning and intermediate teachers working with children from age 18 months to 8 years.

Teacher Skill Level

beginning intermediate advanced

Children's Age Level

infants toddlers preschoolers school-agers birth to 8

Kit Timeline:
Preparation time for this kit is 1 to 1.5 hours. Implementation time is estimated at 1.5 hours.

Training Outcomes:

1. Teachers will identify the three different levels of meaning for number words.
2. Teachers will describe the characteristics of children who are at the preoperational and concrete operations stages of cognitive development according to Jean Piaget.
3. Teachers will distinguish between the thinking of a preoperational child and a concrete operations child and identify additional examples of each based on classroom observation or experience.
4. Teachers will list several examples of ways to help preoperational and concrete operations children build their concepts of interval numbers by classifying objects, seriating materials, and matching patterns.

These training outcomes address the following:

• B-5c, d, e; B-7c of the Accreditation Criteria and Procedures of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, 1998).
• 4a, b, c, and d of NAEYC Standards for Early Childhood Professional Preparation, Initial Licensure Level (NAEYC, 2003).
• 1304.21(a)(4)(i); 1301.21(a)(4)(iv) of Head Start Performance Standards (Federal Register, Nov. 5, 1996, Volume 61, Number 215).

Note: Downloadable PDFs are only available for download in pdf format. Directions for downloading follow immediately after purchase.