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# Welcome to TouchCounts

In TouchCounts, children use their fingers, eyes and ears to learn to count, add and subtract. By using simple gestures to create and manipulate their own numbers, children develop a strong number sense.

TouchCounts offers two experiences:

| The Numbers World. Here children create the counting numbers in sequence. The Numbers world helps young learners coordinate the various number representations to which they’ve been exposed—spoken numbers, written numbers, sequential finger-pointings, and depicted object collections—into a common, unified number sequence. Along the way they develop facility with enumeration and ordinality.
| The Operations World. Here children create arbitrary whole numbers and explore basic number operation concepts by pushing numbers together (into new, larger numbers) or by splitting numbers apart (into new, smaller numbers). These operations give learners conceptual and hands-on building blocks for understanding cardinality, addition and subtraction.

In both worlds, learners also encounter and work with spoken and symbolic number names, one-to-one correspondence, subitization and finger knowledge.

# Getting Started

Children benefit from making choices and being in control. TouchCounts encourages exploration and choice-making in an environment that is structured by mathematical rules, but that is not channeled into narrow opportunities or preconceived outcomes.

One of the best ways you can support learners’ experience with TouchCounts is to encourage this open exploration, while asking them in different situations why they think TouchCounts responded as it did, or what they think will happen if they try something. You might try to pose small challenges for them, or to ask them questions about the mathematical challenges and goals they set for themselves. Encourage them to speak as well as to act: talking through one’s own understanding is one of the strongest ways to develop and solidify that understanding.

For instructions and simple, engaging activities you can use with a variety of learners, visit the Numbers and Operations sections.