Counting with Pop it

Preschooler loves to count everything from fingers, toys, cars, dishes and birds. He can count to 10 without any assistance. We are working on counting 11 to 20. He points to and counts an object for number correspondence. Now we are working on counting numbers in motion. To do this we bought the game Pop It.

Who doesn’t remember that simple game where you struggled to press down on the plastic upside down cup to watch the die pop? Who also remembers the frustration of having to wait to pop a 6 or wait six turns in order to put a game piece on start? I completely forgot all this! However as the husband and I are being reminded: preschooler is learning it.

Preschooler giggles watching the die spin around under the clear cup. We enjoy watching him struggle with pressing the cup down. He has a look of complete concentration and determination when he presses on the cup because he knows it is going to take all his 5-year-old strength to pop that die.  Preschooler loves showing us his counting ability by counting the little black dots on the die and then counting the spaces he needs to move.

The hardest part of this game for him was counting the spaces and moving the game piece at the same time. He would start counting, forget where his piece started at and get all flustered. To help with this we had him keep his game piece in its spot and using his finger point to the next spots counting to his popped number. Once his finger was on its destination he can move his game piece with his other hand to where his finger pointed. Frustration alleviated.

While playing this game preschooler is learning to put his counting skills in motion. He is also learning that we do not always have to win a game in order to have fun.