How Many Differences? Count and Write the Number

Nobody tells the child how many differences there are. A garden scene with a chick, a hummingbird, a butterfly, flowers and a ladybug is drawn twice, and the only ledger on the page is a single empty box for a numeral. The child circles every change found in the bottom picture, including places where something has simply gone, and then writes the total. On the copy shown that total is six, but every printed copy of this grade-1 page draws its own number of changes, so the count is a genuine secret.

This turns comparison into counting. Finding the changes is the visual work; keeping a running tally of circles and writing the numeral is the counting work, the kind a first grader is asked to do with sets of objects. Because the instruction says that something may be gone, an empty space counts as a find, which stops children from reporting only the changes that are still visible.

The answer key rings every change and prints the number in the box; the tap screen asks the child to tap each difference and then choose the right numeral from a row of four, 3 to 6. The base page of the find-the-differences family tells the count outright, which is the version to use first. These pages compare two pictures of one scene; mirror drawing, colouring by number and odd-one-out puzzles have their own pages.