Sing number songs and rhymes, such as "One, Two, Three, Four, Five," "Five Little Ducks" and "10 Green Bottles." Encourage children to make a fist with each hand and fold up each finger in turn as they count forward, or to hold their fingers up and fold down each one as they count backward.
Play "Hide and Seek" indoors or in the garden. Count to 10 out loud while your child hides a teddy. Then let your child count out loud while you hide the teddy.
Play counting games during everyday activities, such as getting dressed. For example, count back from 10 and challenge your child to put on her socks before you reach zero.
Let your child grab a handful of colorful buttons from a box. Place the buttons onto a surface and encourage your child to move each button as he counts out loud to enable one-to-one correspondence and accurate counting. Emphasize that the last number counted determines the total amount of objects in the set. For example, say, "You counted nine buttons!"
Use pink play dough to make 10 pretend sausages. Place them into a frying pan that is either pretend or real. Sing the number rhyme "10 Fat Sausages" and let your child squash one sausage when you say "Pop!" and one more when you say "Bang!" Count how many are left and continue the rhyme until all the sausages are squashed.
In her book, "100 Number Games," Jenny Tavener recommends a fun math game called "Washing Line Numbers" that enables recognition and ordering of numerals from one to 10. Help your child write numerals from one to 10 on self-adhesive labels and then stick them onto small items of clothing. Hang the items in correct numerical order upon a washing line. Ask your child to close her eyes while you remove some clothing and hide it outside. Let your child open her eyes and identify which numbers are missing from the line. She can then hunt for the clothes in the garden and try to replace them in the correct order on the line.
The ABC website provides free online math games for reinforcement of math concepts and independent practice of problem-solving skills. The "Count Us In" game challenges children to place a required number of passengers, for example, 10 passengers, onto a bus. Children drag images of passengers onto the top deck and lower decks of the bus. As they place each passenger onto the bus a number sentence appears to describe each partitioning attempt, for example, "5 and 5." The games allow children to self-check the accuracy of their attempts and to try again if they wish.