d for construction or in
real life.

There are but few true number games, but dominoes and card games
introduce the number groups. In "Old maid" the children pair the groups
and so learn to recognise them; in dominoes they use this knowledge,
while "Snap" involves quick recognition. Any one can make up a game in
which scoring is necessary. Ninepins or skittles is a number game, and
one can score by using number groups, or by fetching counters, shells,
beads, etc., as reminders. The number groups are important; they form
what Miss Punnett calls "a scheme" for those who have no great
visualising power, and they combine the smallest groups into large ones.
It ought to be remembered that the repetition of a group is an easier
thing to deal with than the combination of two groups, that is, six is
a name for two threes and eight for two fours, but five and seven have
not so definite a meaning.[33]

[Footnote 33: This very morning a child cutting out brown paper pennies
for a shop said, 'Look! there are two sixes; that _would_ be a big
number!']

The Tillich bricks are good playthings, and so is cardboard
money--shillings, sixpences, threepences, pence and halfpence.

When the names have a meaning the children will want signs, i.e.
figures. Clock figures (Roman) can be used first as simplest, showing
the closed fingers and the thumb for V; the only difficulty is IX. The
Arabic figures can be made by drawing round the number groups, or by
laying out their shapes in little sticks. 5 and 8 show very plainly how
to arrange five and eight sticks; for two and three they are placed
horizontally, the curves merely joining the lines.

In teaching children to count, the decimal system should be kept well in
mind, and the teacher should see that thirteen means three-ten, and that
the children can touch the three and the ten as they speak the word.
Eleven and twelve ought to be called oneteen and twoteen, half in joke.
The idea of grouping should never be lost sight of, and larger numbers
should at first be names for so many threes, fours, fives, etc. In order
to keep the meaning clear the children should say threety, fourty and
fivety, but there should be no need to write these numbers. The
Kindergarten sticks tied in bundles of ten are quite convenient counting
material when any counting is necessary. Tram tickets and cigarette
pictures can be used in the same way.

The decimal notation is a great thing to learn, how great any on