More or Less Than

This is how I taught my daughter the concept of more or less than.

 

I got out a bunch of her little animals and told her that her alligator was very hungry and he was looking for dinner.  I then grouped some animals on either side of alligator. 

 

I asked her, "Would alligator rather eat more animals or less animals?"  She said, "More".  I then told her to point him towards the animals he wants to eat.  She understood immediately and we played like this for awhile. 

 

When she was starting to get bored with the game I brought out the dry erase board (I had prepared it earlier).  For the first one I asked, "Would alligator rather eat two bites of food or just one?"  She said, "two". I demonstrated how to make an alligator mouth.  She quickly made it through the top two rows of the board.  The hardest part for her was drawing the mouth but she always knew which way it should be facing.  The bottom rows were just as easy for her but I wanted her to practice hearing and saying "more" and "less"  and I also wanted her to practice estimating.

 

Because she picked this up much quicker than I thought she would I will be working on "equal to" this next week.  I plan on teaching it the same way.