Gingerbread men math activities with printable number cards

Use these printable gingerbread man number cards with all these gingerbread man-themed math activities for fun, hands-on learning.

 

 

Gingerbread men math activities with printable number cards

Print and play with these number cards to give your children a hands-on element to math, and to create a number-rich environment.

Materials needed:

:: number cards sheets from the Gingerbread Man Unit

:: scissors

:: laminator (optional)

Print the number sheets onto card and cut out each square. You might like to laminate the cards for extra durability.

 

 

 

How to use the gingerbread man number cards

You can use the number cards in all your math play during your Gingerbread Unit.

Here are six ways to use these gingerbread numbers:

1 :: Hide them around the house and tell your children the gingerbread men have run away. See if your children can find them all. Line them up from small to big, or big to small, and count them out going up or down. You can peg them up to make a number line.

 

 

 

2 :: Hide them in a sensory tub filled with sand or rice or shredded paper and let your children dig for them. You could use a large mixing bowl as the tub and fish out the gingerbread men with a wooden spoon. Seeing numbers in their play helps children become familiar with them, however they are playing. Playing with numbers in the early years is as important as doing specific math lessons.

3 :: Print off two sets and play a matching game. Young children could simply work to spot the pairs. With older children you can play ‘Memory’: place all the number cards face down and take it in turns to turn over two cards. If they match, you can keep them. If they don’t, you turn them back over. The person who has the most pairs at the end of the game is the winner.

 

 

 

4 :: Use them to practice arithmetic, working on addition, subtraction, multiplication or division to suit your child. Children could use manipulatives such as pebbles, buttons or real mini-gingerbread men to help them work out the answers: using real objects (even fingers) for as long as they need to is a good strategy for children to use. We need to understand the real principle of what we are doing before we can move on to doing sums abstractly. Encourage your child to use objects for arithmetic for as long as they need to.

 

 

 

5 :: Use them as quick flashcards to practise facts your child has already learned. If your child knows their four times table, you can help them become faster at recalling the answers by having little practices often. Hold up a number card and see if they can tell you what four times that number is.

 

 

6 :: Tape the number cards down on the floor in a place where you walk often. A sheet of clear plastic / contact paper over the top of the card can hold them flush to the floor. Each time your children pass they can step, hop or jump on each number in turn, calling out the name for each number. You can set up pathways for simple counting, or for skip counting (using cards 2, 4, 6, 8, 10… to make your path)