Number representation for younger students

It wasn't until my new job required that I model lessons in the lower grades that I began to think about number representations, and also because I have a 4 year old at home who needs some school time built into his summer activities :) 


Last October I modeled a lesson in Kinder about different ways to represent numbers. The following was an extension the teacher and I prepped and built into a center for students to continue practicing.

We used large craft sticks to create these handy learning tools.

The pics above show that we were practicing recognizing a number, its written form, its value on a ten frame and in tallies. We colored the odd numbers red on the ten frame, and the even numbers green.

Later in the year, once the students were very familiar with the numbers, we asked them to sort them into even/odd.
P.S. Ask kids to sort things without giving them categories and see what amazing things they come up with. This particular kinder class sorted the sticks by curved and straight lines, shaded and unshaded shapes and number of letters.


BONUS! You can have kids create matching cards so that they can play a game! They'll need 5 cards per number: 1) number 2) words 3) ten frame 4) represented with objects and 5) tallies.


What other easy number representation activities have you tried?