Lesson video

Welcome to your maths lesson with me, Mrs. Harris.

In this lesson, we're going to learn to count four objects reliably.

Here's our lesson agenda.

Agenda means what we're going to do and in what order.

So we're going to start the lesson with some singing.

We've got songtime, then we'll do some new learning, have a talk task.

After the talk task, I'll develop your understanding of counting to four reliably, and we'll finish the lesson with some independent learning where you show me how you can count to four reliably.

So let's find out what you're going to need.

I would like you to have the printed worksheet, some building blocks, maybe like the Lego I've put on the screen, any we'll do though, and if you haven't got any, why not some pasta or something like that? Something small that you can move.

And it would be great if you could have a pair of scissors, under the supervision of your parent or carer, of course.

If you don't have them, pause the video, go and find them, and then come back ready for the rest of the lesson.

♪ Four little ducks went swimming one day ♪ ♪ Over the hill and far away ♪ ♪ Mother duck said quack, quack, quack, quack ♪ ♪ But only three little ducks came back ♪ ♪ Three little ducks went swimming one day ♪ ♪ Over the hill and far away ♪ ♪ Mother duck said quack, quack, quack, quack ♪ ♪ But only two little ducks came back ♪ ♪ Two little ducks went swimming one day ♪ ♪ Over the hill and far away ♪ ♪ Mother duck said quack, quack, quack, quack ♪ ♪ But only one little duck came back ♪ ♪ One little duck went swimming one day ♪ ♪ Over the hill and far away ♪ ♪ Mother duck said quack, quack, quack, quack ♪ ♪ But no little ducks came swimming back ♪ I do like that song.

In fact, I like it so much that I thought I'd base our learning on it today.

So our new learning is all about reliably counting to four.

Now, we started off with four little ducks went swimming one day.

Let's just count them.

And as I count them, I'm going to touch them.

You could point to the screen or just watch.

One, two, three, four.

I've got this one.

Oh yes, this is mummy duck.

I'm not going to count her, 'cause our song was four little ducks went swimming one day.

And do you remember? Mummy duck said quack, quack, quack, quack.

But so I don't count her, I'm going to take her away.

Let's count again.

One, two, three, four.

Now we could sing our song again.

Shall we sing it together? ♪ Four little ducks went swimming one day ♪ ♪ Over the hills and far away ♪ ♪ Mummy duck said quack, quack, quack quack ♪ ♪ But only three little ducks came back ♪ Oh, let's count our ducks now.

Are there more or less than mummy duck started with? There's less, isn't there? We've got one, two, three.

Bet they'd like to go swimming as well.

So we can sing about them.

♪ Three little ducks went swimming one day ♪ ♪ Over the hills and far away ♪ ♪ Mummy duck said quack, quack, quack, quack ♪ ♪ But only two little ducks came back ♪ Oh no, it's even less.

Now shall we count them? One, two.

Two is the last number I said, so that represents how many I have all together.

I only have two ducks.

We can still sing about them, can't we? ♪ Two little ducks went swimming one day ♪ ♪ Over the hills and far away ♪ ♪ Mummy duck said quack, quack, quack, quack ♪ ♪ But only one little duck came back ♪ Shall we count again? Ready? One.

Oh.

I touched it, I said the number.

There is only one.

Poor mummy duck.

We can still sing about this one going swimming, couldn't we? ♪ One little duck went swimming one day ♪ ♪ Over the hills and far away ♪ ♪ Mummy duck said quack, quack, quack, quack ♪ ♪ But no ducks came swimming back ♪ Shall we count how many ducks I've got? I haven't got any, have I? Poor mummy duck.

Would none of her ducks come back? Do you think we could help her? What about if together we said quack, quack, quack, quack, four quacks? Maybe the four little ducks would come back.

Are you ready? So, quack, quack, quack, quack, and look whose coming back.

One, two, three, and four.

All mummy duck's ducks are back.

She must be happy now.

And what I'd like you to do now is to use your pictures of the ducks.

Let me put these back safely on the pond.

Now, I'd like you to cut them out, across the lines, not so you've got individual ducks, because for your talk task, you're going to turn one over.

If I turned one over with this many ducks, my talk, 'cause that's what we're doing, we're talking, my talk would be to say I need two blocks.

My blocks are going to represent the ducks.

And then my partner would give me one, two blocks.

But maybe you turn them over and you found one with this many ducks.

Remember, when I count, I like to touch things as I count them.

One, two, three, four.

I have four ducks.

I would like four bricks, please.

And then my partner would say one, two, three, four.

Here's four blocks for you.

So, I'd like you to pause the video now and have a go at your talk task, and I'll see you in a few minutes.

How did you get on with the talk task? Did you remember to touch each duck as you counted it? Did you remember that the last number you said was the total and that was how many bricks you needed to ask for? Well done.

I thought now, as we're developing our understanding of counting to four, now would be a good time to show you how to write a number four.

So, I've got my pen and I've got my whiteboard.

To write a number four, I go down, I'm not going to take my pen off yet, and across, but now I can take my pen off because now I need to go down.

You see my number four? Let me do it again.

And I'll do it one more time.

Hang on.

It's the number four.

I feel I should write it four times.

At the moment, I've written 1 four, 2 fours, 3 fours.

Here, I should write 4 number fours.

Now, to continue our learning, we are going to look at some real ducks, and I want us to count how many there are.

And this time, instead of just matching it to our Lego, we're going to match it to the numbers.

So I've written all the numbers we'll need.

We'll need a number one, number two, number three, and I'm quite sure you know this one, number four.

Four.

Four.

So, let's have a look at my first lot of ducks.

Hey, here's my ducks.

I know it's quite tricky when we can't touch them, isn't it? To count, we could point.

We could put a piece of Lego on each one I've counted so we know I've counted it.

Don't worry, it's just on the picture.

I wouldn't put Lego on a real duck.

So, let's count them together.

One, two.

There are two ducks, but which number goes with that? Which is my number two? This one, isn't it? There are two ducks all together.

Well done.

Let's find out what the next ducks look like.

Ooh! Hmm.

Should we count him? I think I know how many there are.

I'll count just to be sure.

Are you ready? Count with me.

One.

There is one duck.

Which is my number one? It's this one, isn't it? Number one.

And look, he's standing on one leg.

I wonder what our next ducks look like.

Ooh.

There's more this time, isn't there? There's definitely more than one.

Okay.

I think I know which number I need.

I'm going to count to check.

Will you count with me? One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Hey, I can stop there.

This is the number three.

This matches the number of ducks in my picture.

There are three ducks all together.

Hey, I wonder which one's left.

Oh, little ducklings! And they have come back.

One of them is having a little wash under the water, and the one next to it looks like it's laughing.

Do you think we should count them? There's more than one.

I think there's more than two.

I think there's more than three.

I'm going to count them to check.

I think I know how many there are, do you? Ready? One, two, three, four.

We know what number four looks like, don't we? It's this one, four.

Four.

We have four ducks all together.

What great counting.

We are getting good at reliably counting to four.

We know to touch them as we count them, if we can.

We know what a number four looks like, and we know that when we're counting, the last number we say represents the total in the set.

The last number we said here was four, for our four ducks all together.

For your independent learning, because you're ready to do some learning on your own, I would like you to show me that you recognise the numbers one, two, three, or four by having these number cards and turning one over at a time.

And as you do so, make a tower as tall as the number on it.

So if you turned over number one, you could make a tower of one brick, but if you made, if you turned over number four, you could have a tower of four bricks.

Do you think it would be taller or shorter than my tower of one brick? So, if you want to challenge yourself, the way to do that is once you've made all four of your towers, put them in order of shortest to tallest and count them again and see what you notice.

So pause the video now, do your independent learning, and then come back to me.

What did you find out as you built your towers? Did you find out, like I did, that your tower of four bricks was taller than your tower of three bricks, and it was taller than your tower of two bricks, and taller than your tower of one brick? Did you notice how you could order them from least to most, fewest to greatest, where you could order them from greatest to fewest? If you were counting backwards four, three, two, one, zero.

I think that, well, I know it, that's because four is a greater number than three, two, or one.

It represents more than three, two, or one.

We can also see that in these pegs that I've used.

We can see one up here, and then we can see how we've got more each time until we get to number four along the bottom.

We've worked so hard today, and I'm sure that you can now count reliably to four.

Just do it one more time for me.

We'll use my pegs along the bottom.

One, two, three, four.

Brilliant! All that's left for me to do is to say that if you'd like to share any of your work with me or everyone at Oak National, you could ask your parent or carer to share it for you on social media, and all the details are on the screen now.

I'll be looking out for some of your ways of counting to four and your towers.

So, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

Bye!.