Counting with Your Child
Susan Elsass, Early Childhood Educator

Children love to count. It is an activity that you can do in the car, waiting in a line at the store or doing chores at home. There are millions of things to count. Start by counting objects or toys that your child is interested in. For example, if your child likes to play with cars, then count cars. Using your pointer finger, touch each object as you count out loud. This is called one-to-one correspondence counting by teachers.
                                                                                                                                                                                                             It is important to start with a small number of objects and very gradually increase the number of things that you count. Five or less is a good number to begin with. Practice and repetition are very important in learning to count. Vary it by using different voices (soft, loud, high and low) to count.

A good way to introduce and reinforce counting is by reading books. Some of my favorite number books are:

" Mouse Count", by Ellen Stoll Walsh
"Ten in a Bed", by Mary Rees
"Ten Black Dots", by Donald Crews
"10 Little Rubber Ducks", by Eric Carle
"Spot Can Count", by Eric Hill
"Ten Little Ladybugs", by Melanie Gerth.

A fun way to teach counting backwards is with songs and fingerplays. My favorite songs to teach counting backward from the number five are listed below:

Five Little Ducks
Five little ducks went out to play (Hold up 5 fingers)
Over the hills and far away.         
Mother duck called quack, quack, quack. (Use both hands like a beak)
Four little ducks came waddling back. (Hold up 4 fingers)
Three little ducks…
Two little ducks…
One little duck…
Sad mother duck…
And all five ducks came waddling back.

Five Little Monkeys
Five little monkeys jumping on the bed. (Hold up 5 fingers)
One fell off and bumped his head.  (Use 1 finger with motion)
Mama called the doctor      (Hold phone in hand)
 And the doctor said, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed.” (Wag finger back and forth)
Four little monkeys…
Three little monkeys…
Two little monkeys…
One little monkey …

Five Little Speckled Frogs
Five little speckled frogs (Hold up and bop 5 fingers)
Sat on a speckled log
Eating the most delicious bugs (Pick off and eat bugs)
Yum! Yum!  (Rub tummy)
One jumped into the pool   (One finger motions hopping into pool)
Where it was nice and cool
Then there were four green speckled frogs (Hold up 4 fingers)
Glub, glub, glub.
Sing down to 0 frogs. Then last line is
Glub, glub, glub G-L-U-B (Deep voice)

Additional Resources:

http://projects.preschoolrock.com/index.php/preschool-family-projects

http://www.ehow.com/how_2264604_help-toddler-learn-count.html