Special Numbers User Guide - Counting

The aim of this activity is to build and reinforce the ability to count objects by touching them.

To play you count the balls or animals that appear, by tapping each one. When you tap an object, a number is spoken (1 for the first one you tap, 2 for the second, and so on) and the corresponding number digit (or digits) is shown on top of it.

The activity moves through steps, displaying a different number of objects in each step. By default, the first step has 1 object, the next 2, and so on up to 5, with a blue arrow shown when it's time to move on between steps, and a reward is presented after each step.

You can change the reward and arrow behaviour from the common settings in the opening view, as explained in Chapter 3. The activity also has its own settings, which you can access from its Settings button:

First Number

The number of objects to show in the first step: between 1 and 20.

Last Number

The number of objects to show in the last step: between 1 and 20. If for example, you set First Number to 3 and Last Number to 6, then the steps would be for 3, 4, 5 and 6 objects. If the last number is smaller that the first number, then you can play with descending steps, e.g. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If you want to work with just a single fixed number of objects, set First Number and Last Number to the same value.

Play In Order

If this is ON, the steps are played in order (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). If you turn it OFF, the steps are played in a random order each time, e.g. 2, 5, 1, 4, 3, or 4, 5, 1, 3, 2.

Scatter Objects

The ball or animals are normally shown in a regular arrangement, starting at the top left, and going across, then starting the next row, up to a maximum of 4 rows of 5 objects. If you turn this setting ON then the objects are instead scattered randomly among the 20 possible positions.

Type Of Object

You can choose between Matching or Mixed balls, animals, flowers, pencils or bugs. Matching means that, within a single step, all the objects look identical. Mixed means randomly chosen from a set of 12 different objects.

Before Counting

If this sound setting is ON, the number of objects is spoken at the start of each step. Turn OFF to disable this.

When Tap Object

If this sound setting is ON, the number corresponding to each object is spoken when it is tapped. Turn OFF to disable this.