A Realization about Counting

These dominoes were a great Christmas gift !

I love watching my kids develop the basic skills that will some day build into the challenging physics I used to teach.  This morning while we were waiting on Daddy to finish up the pancakes, the kids and I played a round of animal dominoes.  My daughter loves the matching aspect and my son loves that we can make shapes with the path of the dominoes.

As we played, I prompted them to count the number of animals on the piece they were matching up. Surprisingly, they love this and prompt me to count mine too. Actually it is not surprising if you're familiar with little ones, but it still surprises me.

My daughter started to get confused on some of the more crowded dominoes, so she said, " Mom, you count, I'll point."  Apparently, she has learned that an appropriate way to deal with the irregular pattern of the animals  is to break the task down, and concentrate on one aspect at a time. For her, touching each animal on the pattern once is a skill unto itself, and once she has it mastered, she will go back and attach the numbers.  

Isn't that fascinating!?  Just the act of counting involves  at least two skills:  identifying each piece individually, and knowing what number comes next.