Learning to count: videos and songs for toddlers and preschoolers
Somewhere between two and four it starts: a child counting the stairs, wanting three biscuits "because I'm three", or proudly counting to ten and starting again at eleven. Children mostly learn to count by doing it, with things they can touch. A video can help along the way, as a song that sticks or a sequence you say together.
We looked at what KidsTube has about counting. This is what we found.
Songs to count along to
A counting song works because the rhythm holds the sequence. Sing it a few times together and your child can do it without a screen afterwards.
- Super Simple Songs has Seven Steps, Count And Move and The Bananas Song. Short and easy to join in with.
- ABC 123 has a run of number songs from LittleBabyBum, each about one number.
With Elmo
Sesame Street has more about counting than anything else in the catalog. There's Count to 10 with Elmo and Abby, a Number of the Day song that counts to twenty, and longer collections of full episodes about counting. Sesame Street has been teaching numbers for a very long time, and it shows.
For preschoolers who want more
Once ten is easy, there are videos that go further. Fun Learning counts from 1 to 20, and has one that counts to ten in French, which is a fun surprise for a child who has just got the hang of it in English.
For older children who like facts, Nat Geo Kids has a By the Numbers series about speed, time and animals. That's less about learning to count and more about what numbers are for.
Search for more
To find more, search for count or numbers. The search looks at video titles, so what turns up depends on what the creator called their video.
Counting without a screen
The video is where it starts. The real counting happens afterwards, with things around the house:
- Count what you see. Stairs, buttons on a coat, apples in the bowl, cars going past.
- Let your child point. Saying the numbers up to ten is not the same as counting ten things. Pointing at one thing for each number is the step that makes the difference.
- Count down together. "Three more pushes on the swing, then we go home." Children often like counting down more than counting up, and it helps with stopping too.
- Keep it small. For a toddler, counting to three or five is plenty. It doesn't all have to be ten at once.
Working on letters as well? There's a post on ABCkidTV's alphabet songs too.
Happy counting!