Four- and five-year-olds may be able to count to ten before having a sense of a number being connected to a specific quantity. Here’s a simple, hands-on activity to help them associate a numeral with a quantity: Begin with numbers 1 through 5. Write a numeral on one side of a blank index card and put that number of large dots on the back. This makes it self-checking. The child can first match the number card to a pile of objects you’ve put together. Then he can make piles himself, putting the number card next to the pile for you to double-check.

Objects in a pile can be identical—a common approach in workbook pages. But to develop true number sense, kids should also have experiences identifying the number of objects in a group that fit into category, but aren’t exactly alike. For example, 4 books of varying size and thickness, 5 cans with different colored labels, 2 pencils of different length or color, and so on. Once they master 1-5, use this same approach with 6-10, and then with 1-10.