Understand that an amount does not depend on what the objects are

💡 How it plays and why it helps

Three carrots and three ducks look nothing alike, and some children doubt they can be the same amount. Understand that an amount does not depend on what the objects are is a Pre-K game built on that doubt. A row of carrots, lemons or butterflies sits at the top. Below, four pictures show another kind of object, bunched close together, and your child taps the one with as many or, on half the cards, with more. Five questions make a round, read aloud and checked with an explanation: 3 carrots and 3 ducks, as many.

Counting works on anything. This is the abstraction principle: a duck and a carrot each count as one. The hint gives the method. Match each carrot with a duck, and nothing should be left over.

Each wrong picture sits one object away, one more or one fewer, and a huddled group hides the difference. Ask your child to point to one carrot and one duck at a time. "Who has no partner?" usually settles it. Name the patience afterward: "You paired them up one by one."