Bub asked to work with numerals and counters today. I put away our Valentine's Day counters last week, and haven't gotten St. Patrick's Day ones together yet. Our plain numerals and counters are boxed up due to some home repair we have going on.
So, I quickly wrote out numbers 0-10 on 10 pieces of cardstock. For counters, I gave him a bowl of white chocolate chips.
Since Bub has mastered 0-10 numerals & counters quite a long time ago, I left him to work alone at the Table while I worked with Princess on her reading. When I came back to check on bub a bit later, he had the numerals ordered on the table, but not a single chocolate-chip counter laid out.
As I watched, Bub laaid a single chocolate-chip counter under the 0, then mumbled to himself, " Oops... 0 means none. I should get rid of this counter...", then proceeded to get rid of the chocolate chip-counter by eating it! Then, he went through the process again.. and again... until all the chocolate chip-counters were gone!
And what we learned..... edible manipulatives are distracting. And 0 does, indeed, mean "none".
