A Wearable Abacus

We read Eric Carle's  Rooster's Off to See The World 

In the illustrations, Eric Carle uses stacking squares to show the number relationship to the animals the rooster encounters on his adventure.  In this spirit, we made number story necklaces using pony beads.

The children added one bead to represent the rooster, then two beads stand for the next two animals using a different color, and then three of another color and so on until they had ten beads of the last color. 

Some children selected the beads according to what their animals looked like in their minds such as choosing three red beads to represent three red lady bugs-a creature not in the story but adapted by this particular student.  Others chose their beads based on colors that they liked.

Many of the children were able to pick a bead from the main dish on the table, string that bead and keep counting until they had the number needed.  Others did get confused and it helped to have them count out the number of beads needed into a cup and then string that group. 

We did go further than the book which covers up to 5 animals and then goes in reverse.  We used ten different colors and had groups of beads up until 10.