Maths activities for preschoolers work best when they are fun (of course!) and practical – using real objects the children can feel, rather than abstract numbers on a worksheet.
Try this fruit cocktail maths activity for some tasty number practice.
Sunflower Challenge 2011
Today’s the Day!
If you’ve been growing sunflowers with us as part of the Compton Hospice Sunflower Challenge you need to measure your sunflowers today. There are fabulous prizes on offer for the tallest bloom, so measure up and contact Compton with your vital statistics.
Our tallest is currently 1m 65cm. They got up to 2m 47cm last year, so there’s plenty more growing to be done. How tall are yours?
Sunflower Festival
If you’ve been enjoying growing sunflowers (whether you’re joining in the official challenge or not) and have a sunflower-themed play idea to share with us – we would love to see them. Please add a link to the Linky at the end of this post. We’ve shared some ideas for art, science and math in our Sunflower Activities ebook, and here’s one more idea for sunflower fun.
LEGO® math activity :: measuring with LEGO
Everyday maths ideas
There’s maths to be found in all sorts of places. If you’re mindful of the opportunities you can weave some practical maths games into your everyday routines and play – giving your children the counting, sorting and matching practise that forms the foundation of later maths (and literacy) skills, without sitting down for formal lessons or loosing a playful approach.
Toddlers and pre-schoolers usually love to help with the household chores so here are three ideas to mix in some maths.
- When you hang out the washing together ask your helper if they can match the clothes pegs into colour pairs and pass you them two at a time to peg up each piece of clothing.
- At a mealtime have your child work out how many people are going to be eating. Ask them to pick out the rigth number of cutlery and sort them into knives, forks and spoons.
- At laundry time, matching pairs of socks is tailor made for toddlers!
These activities let young children see how maths is important in the real world and help them practise their skills in context, which is a more valuable learning experience than using a set of flashcards. They also let you mix in some maths whilst still getting on with all the chores you need to do.
happily shared with Tot School and preschool corner
Go fish maths game
This maths game combines crafting, turn taking and a bit of science as well as the chance to work on counting and number ordering. It’s easy to create the materials for the game and you can adapt it to suit whichever set of numbers you’re working on – or make a set with letters if you want to practise the alphabet.
You’ll need to start by making a set of fish.
1. Cut out some fish shapes from some coloured card and let the children decorate them. Leave a space on each one to add a number.
2. Fill in the numbers on each fish. We start out with numbers 1-10 but you can add more, or perhaps use 10, 20, 30… depending on which number sequence you’d like to play with.
3. To make a magnetic version you can add a metal paperclip near the mouth of each fish. You can then use a magnetic fishing rod (which you can make by trying a magnet to a piece of string) to go fishing for your number letters.
How to play:
- Place the fish, number side up, on the floor, in a hoop or in a bucket. Or make an undersea landscape picture for them to swin in.
- The easiest version of the game is to practise your hand-eye co-ordination and just let the children go fish. See if they can recognise the numbers on each fish they catch. Encourage the children to co-operate and take turns with the fishing rod.
- You can aim to catch the fish in ascending or descending number order, or just see which ones they catch and arrange them into a sequence once they’ve all been caught.
- Tell the children you had ten fish when you started and, as they catch the fish, ask them if they can work out how many more must be left in the pond.
- You can try some sums too. Pick a number, say 3, and then catch a fish. Can you add the number on the fish to your starting number of 3? (you might like to use a number line to help work this out). Or have the children catch two fish and see if they can add their numbers together.
- If you have an older sibling playing along they can practise their number bonds. If they catch a 3, what number do they need to add to get to ten? They could work on times tables too.
As an alternative, you can make version of the fish with letters instead of numbers. When they catch a fish you can see if the children can say the sound of the letter they have. Can they think of something that starts with that letter? Can they find something in the room that starts with the letter?
We like to use this game to make numbers (and letters) fun and have the children approach learning them in a playful way. How do you add numbers to your play?
Counting ladybirds
Make a set of number ladybirds, add in some stickers and have some counting fun.
Taking a child’s passion and using it to practise a new skill works really well. I know a child who *loves* stickers – that simple process of peel and stick, peel and stick, gives them immense satisfaction! So I thought I’d use this in a different way to help us work on our counting too. Ladybirds with spots lend themselves to counting games really well, and sticker dots are inexpensive and easy to get hold of.
To start your ladybird counting, first make your ladybirds.
- Cut out some ladybird shapes from card.
- Write on them numbers one to ten.
- Let the children lose with the stickers – putting the right number of spots on each ladybird.
Here are some of the ideas we played:
- Can you find the ladybird with a number one?
- Can you add the right number of stickers to match the number?
- Which ladybird has got the most stickers?
- Can you line up the ladybirds from one to ten, or from ten to one.
- This ladybird has two spots – can you find a ladybird with one spot more?
- How old are you? Can you find a ladybird with the same number of spots?