I was inspired by another mommy teacher and finally got my act together and started hanging our Fall activities on the blinds of the playroom and it got me SO motivated to purpose even more seasonal teaching moments.

I am not over-zealous… I purpose one activity a day… and today’s activity was “Bat- Math.”   I wanted to give y’all the step-by-step breakdown in case you wanted to print this FREE Bat-Math Printable and have some duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh da nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh BAT – MATH.  Sorry, had to set the tone for this.

The way that my mini bat-math lesson started is funny… I found a VERY simple page with the outline of 10 bats in an Elmo activity book (by the Count) and I thought…

Today, Sean Patrick is going to learn that The LAST NUMBER he says when counting is the AMOUNT of bats that there are on this page.  (I know that that is an abnormal thought).  That is a common core math standard – that children can simply recognize that the last number they say represents the amount in the group they are counting. (Example: If there are 5 bats on the page then when I count 1-2-3-4-5, I know that there are FIVE bats because it was the last number that I said when I counted the last bat).

I started with too many – I will be honest.  The page had 10 bats.  He can count to 10 but I wish I would’ve started with 5…. which is why I made this free printable with 5 and with 10 because you know your kiddo and can choose.

First I said “Alright Sean Patrick… today lets cover up each one of these bats with skittles.  Each bat gets ONE skittle so that we can count how many bats there are.  When we figure out the right number of bats then we can eat that many skittles!” (once again… he normally only gets to eat THREE skittles so I wish I would’ve started with my own printable haha).

He covered up each bat (one skittle on each bat) and then started to count.  He counted slow – one number for each skittle which is GREAT, but he miscounted because he didn’t count strategically (he started at the bottom and jumped up and around) so I said “Okay baby, try counting from the top then over, and go to the next line so we can count the right number. “

He tried again and he said “ten” but kept counting.

So I said “That was great counting…. lets try it one more time and when I say STOP, try to remember the number that you said!”

He counted it again and then I said “What was the last number you just counted to?”…. he said “five” haha okay this is great….this is the moment I realized 10 was too high to count a group number, and it was the moment that I realized we could work on this one skill all week.

Then we counted it again and I said “Did you hear yourself count to ten…. watch mommy and listen…. I shouted “10!” when I counted to that number and then said “How many?” and he finally said “Ten!”

I said “YEAH! lets celebrate great counting… eat your treats and then we will give all TEN bats a sticker, then we can color them.  Let’s put the stickers on in the same “smart way” to count…. from the top to the bottom.

He was content with coloring just one bat so we glued the “finished” product onto a black sheet of construction paper and hung it up on our “fall art” wall…. (which I will share the play-by-plays of those activities next week).