How I Taught My 3-year Old to Read Double Digit Numbers

As I started putting this countdown chain together I was cursing the idea (hi Amy!). But then I realized the staples work a lot faster than a glue stick - duh! And in no time at all we had our countdown chain for Disney with 70 days to go!

Ahhh - now it's off the floor. 60 more days!

Oh...to his knees. 50 more days!

Getting shorter.... 40 more days!

Mike took a look the other day and said, "Oh no! It's getting shorter! Is it really that close?"

Uh, yes it is!

30 more days, baby!

Every morning Quinn remembers to take a link off his chain (if not the morning then he'll remember at dinner). We started showing him how to "read" the numbers at some point in the 60s. It was funny, because when he got to 60 he said, "sixty-zero". Not quite, we're still working on that. When we got to 30 (a few days ago) he said, "thirty-zero more days!" Well, it actually sounded like "forty-zero", but only because when a 3 year old almost 4 year old says "thirty" chances are it's going to sound pretty close to "forty". I once had two 4 year olds arguing in my class.

Boy 1 - "It's forty (30) - not forty (40)."

Boy 2 - "That's what I said. 'forty (40)'"

Boy 1 - "No, you said forty (40)."

Boy 2 - "No I didn't. It's forty (30)."

I don't remember what they were talking about, but looking back I should have just taken one away and said, "there. Now it's twenty-nine, right?"