Counting activities for preschoolers

16 Counting Activities for Preschoolers

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6 Jul

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George is counting like crazy lately! I don’t know when, but it just clicked for him one day. Now, to put it into context, these are some fun counting activities for preschoolers to practice their 1-2-3s!

There are some many hands on counting activities to do with the kids!

Finding what’s in nature, counting leaves, counting petals, counting rocks. Or look in their toy bin and sort objects and count, count, count!

How many blue blocks are there?

How many straight train tracks are set up?

How many….? what?

Once I see my kids are interested in counting, they can’t seem to stop! George counts everything. When we’re playing board games, he counts how many cards, pieces, whatever it is that is left. Board games are also great for beginners to count spaces, usually its only a few spaces at a time, so its a great way to start.

Whatever it is… make counting fun and natural for the kids. I never try to force a learning problem on them. But just expand on what they’re currently interested in.

These are 16 activities for preschoolers to practice counting.

These are activities that really focus in on the child counting. I have also put together some awesome number activities that include counting, but also number recognition and one to one correspondence.

Download the FREE Learn a Number Week!

Counting activities that are lots of fun:

1. Roll the dice. Count them. Stack the blocks. Count them. Repeat. – One to One Correspondence Practice with Dice & Blocks
2. Go on a scavenger hunt to find numbers and match them up with the corresponding dots. – Letter & Number Scavenger Hunt for Preschoolers to Learn
3. Graph Legos (or other blocks) by counting, counting, counting! – Using Legos to Teach Math & Writing from Crayon Freckles
4. Use Dominoes to decide which chore to do. How many dots are on the Domino? Count them. That’s the chore to do. – Chore List with Dominoes & Numbers
5. More Dominoes! Line up the Dominoes by matching the dots. How many dots are there? – Learning Activity with Dominoes
6. Label bottles with numbers and have the kids count and drop pom poms (or any small object) in. – Sort and Count Math Bottles from The Imagination Tree
7. Instead of bottles, do it with baby food jars! For the farm-loving kid, call them grain bins and have them haul their ‘grain’ and put it in the bins. Each bin can only hold the amount its labeled as. – Number Activity: Learn to Count with Grain Bins
8. Make a simple grid on the sidewalk with numbers and find that many objects from nature! – Counting Objects from Nature from Scribble Doodle and Draw
9. Make a paper chain and count down to something exciting (a birthday, holiday, first day of school, last day of school, vacation, etc)! Every day, count how many chains are left to see how many more days. –Countdown to Christmas: Wrapping Paper Chain
10. Count snacks! Line up some numbers and count snacks to match the number! – We’re Going on a Bear Hunt from Chasing Cheerios
11. Head out into nature and petals on the flowers you find. Take it a step further and sort them by number of petals! – Counting Flower Petals
12. Count apple seeds. Use tally marks as visuals! Apple Seed Math from ABCs to ACTs.
13. Play to your child’s interests. For a vehicle-loving child, use semis to haul blocks to build towers using the correct number of blocks. – Counting Blocks While Building Towers
14. Count using paper clips. Make cute flash cards with numbers and have the kids clip as many paper clips!  Paper Clip Number Cards from Early Education Zone.
15. Make a grid of numbers to learn to count and recognize numbers. – What’s the Number? Count it with Blocks!
16. Practice skip counting but tens! Use some Cheerios and toothpicks. Counting to ten over and over again, then skip count by ten to 100! – Cheerios Skip Counting by 10s with 1-2-3 Peas

Download the FREE Learn a Number Week!

Which counting activities on this list will you do first? Or better yet, what activities would you add for your preschooler to practice counting?

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About Jamie Reimer

Jamie learned to be a hands on mom by creating activities, crafts and art projects for her three boys to do. Jamie needed the creative outlet that activities provided to get through the early years of parenting with a smile! Follow Jamie on Pinterest and Instagram!

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40 Awesome Number Activities for Preschoolers

You are here: Home / Activities / Learning / Math & 123s / 40+ Awesome Number Activities for Preschoolers

27 Apr

Math & 123s
PopularPreschoolersCounting
Numbers
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Number activities for preschoolers don't have to be boring and just worksheets, make them fun so your preschooler will love math!

I love math. I’m a nerd, yes. But I love anything to do with numbers.

I really do hope I can pass this along to my kids by making learning activities about numbers and counting fun for them and not a chore.

As I’m typing this, Henry’s shouting excitedly as he’s counting how many things on his sprayer…though I’m not really sure what he’s counting exactly. He made it to 39 though!

Because I’m a huge math nerd I searched for easy and fun number activities for preschoolers.

My Favorite 40+ Number Activities for Preschoolers!

Try these activities to help preschoolers learn their ABCs!

Recognizing Numbers Activities for Preschoolers

Identifying numbers can be a learning experience for preschoolers (and younger!). Many of the ABC recognition activities can also be adjusted for numbers.

My kids love these 12 number activities for preschoolers to recognize numbers.

1. Turn a number into sensory art – perfect for the 100th day of school!
2. Go on a hunt for numbers and match it with the same number!
3. Follow a number from start to finish in a maze.
4. Trace numbers, really big!
5. Little Family Fun created a parking lot with numbers.
6. Pop! Find the number and pop it!
7. Find and match playing cards.
8. Have target practice with water balloons and numbers, like Motherhood on a Dime
9. Make art! Do this paint by number canvas art.
10. Use stickers and printable number cards to play hide and seek, from Teach Mama.
11. Draw and paint over numbers with q-tips, like Toddler at Play!
12. Clip and match with giant numbers from You’ve Got This Math!

Activities for Number Recognition

Counting Activities for Preschoolers

Learning there’s a sequence to the numbers and what comes next. Try these 18 number activities to help preschoolers learn to count.

1. Connect the dots! A simple past-time activity that reinforces the order of numbers.
2. Upcycle a box into a puzzle of numbers!
3. Create a maze of numbers to drive through. Can they count their way to the end?
4. Stacking up boxes and counting how high you can go!
5. Make a craft together with multiple pieces. Have your child do the counting!
6. Count cars of a particular color while on the road, or semis, or vans, whatever suits their interest!
7. Create a learning game with your ABC mat and number blocks. Choose a number block and pound the corresponding times with a hammer on the corresponding number mat!
8. Let your child run an experiment and measure how much something holds! How many cups fit?
9. Make puzzles with a picture.  Label sections of the puzzle in numerical order. Cut apart and have your child put it back together again, from Growing in PreK.
10. Use friendly animal crackers to practice counting and number recognition, like I Can Teach My Child.
11. Measure objects (or yourself!) and count how big they are, from The Imagination Tree
12. Count objects around the house. No Time For Flash Cards wants to know “How many doors do you have?”
13. Play any board game, or make your own! Little Family Fun creates a fish race game!
14. Count with LEGO! Do Play Learn likes to label a paper with numbers and count out the LEGO next to it.
15. Snack time! Use dice and fruit snacks and play until you eat them all up, like Kids Activities Blog.
16. Have a bean bag toss on the stairs, number them!
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Counting Activities for Preschoolers

One to One Correspondence Activities for Preschoolers

Knowing your numbers is one thing and knowing how to count is another. But being able to put them into context that they each have meaning is done with one to one correspondence.

Get ready for preschool with 35 name activities!

I love these 12 number activities that help a preschool practice one to one correspondence.

1. Head out into nature and explore flowers. Count and compare flower petals! 
2. Go on a hunt for a number and match it to its corresponding dots.
3. Build towers of blocks on a number mat, with the correct number of blocks high!
4. Spark your child’s interest with their interests! A farming approach of loading grain bins with the corresponding number of pieces of “grain.”
5. Have a newspaper throwing game and count up the newspaper balls, or how many you make, or miss!
6. Make something in the kitchen together, or do an experiment and let your child measure out and do the counting.
7. Sort through objects by color, and count how many you have of each!
8. Fill a dump truck with objects (like Dominoes!) and count how many you can fit in there, like Inspiration Laboratories.
9. Estimate first for some fun and then count item, from Teach Preschool.
10. Have a counting race in the front yard and pick dandelions in the process!
11. Roll a die (or two!) and practice one to one correspondence as kids build towers with blocks.
12. Use a dice and small objects (like pom poms or corn kernels) and count them and fill up a tray.

One to One Number Activities for Preschoolers

Counting and number books that will get preschoolers excited about numbers:

• The Baker’s Dozen: A Counting Book
• I Spy Numbers
• One Big Building: A Counting Book About Construction (Know Your Numbers)

Do you actively work on numbers and counting with your child? Share your favorite activities!

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About Jamie Reimer

Jamie learned to be a hands on mom by creating activities, crafts and art projects for her three boys to do. Jamie needed the creative outlet that activities provided to get through the early years of parenting with a smile! Follow Jamie on Pinterest and Instagram!

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Methodological foundations for teaching preschoolers counting and counting activities in preschool educational institutions

Content of the article

1. The concept of counting and counting activities of preschoolers

2. The stages of formation of counting skills and teaching counting activities of preschoolers

The concept of counting and counting activities of preschoolers

90 Definition

Counting is an activity aimed at determining certain quantitative parameters or making calculations, i.e. counting homogeneous objects.

The account consists of the following components:

1. Purpose. By means of the account it is supposed to express the number of specific objects in numerical form.
2. Means of achievement. You can count the number of objects by resorting to counting activities. Counting activities are actions in the course of which reality is mastered in a quantitative representation.
3. Total. The account ends with the receipt of a specific number, which is a generalization of counting activity.

Teaching preschoolers counting activities, like any other activity, will be productive if classes and exercises are organized in a playful way. The game is the best way to get to know the surrounding reality.

Learning to count must be implemented from preschool age, since this knowledge will simplify further mathematical knowledge in elementary school.

By the beginning of schooling, the child should have the following knowledge about numbers and basic mathematical concepts:

• Count up to ten in forward and reverse order with knowledge of numbers from one to ten, the ability to find their location in the number series;
• The skills of forming the number of the first ten;
• Knowledge of geometric figures and their features;
• Skills of dividing objects into constituent components, equal and unequal parts;
• Knowledge of the basics of measurement: length, width, height. As a rule, not a ruler is used for this, but some other objects: sticks, matches. For example, the length of a side of a square is two sticks;
• Skills for comparing sets of objects: more, less, longer, shorter;
• Understanding the number and skills of quantitative measurement of the surrounding reality.

Stages of formation of counting skills and teaching counting activity of preschoolers

Teaching preschool children to count, perform counting operations is realized through work with sets of numbers, which are divided into parts and compared with each other. Counting activity is implemented in several stages, which cover the counting process, counting operations and total. Preschoolers very quickly grasp the process of counting, but summing up they learn quite difficult and lengthy.

Counting activity of preschoolers is mastered during the following stages:

1. Preparatory stage. At this stage, preschoolers are preparing for the upcoming account: performing operations with numbers. Children get acquainted with the concept of a set and its structure. For this, the techniques of dividing the set into separate parts and collecting them into a set are used. Thus, children are aware of what constitutes one element of the set, and what is "many". At this stage, the child does not yet have an idea about numbers. It simply compares the sets with each other. This teaches comparative skills: the child understands that he has more cars than his friend, but they gave him less candy, etc. Thus, the child masters the practical quantitative comparison of sets and learns to identify differences and similarities between them. This stage is precisely the preparation for mastering counting operations and is relevant for use at the age of two or three years, since at an older age, the child is already able to identify that the set consists of separate components.
2. Preparatory stage - two. It is specific in that it also prepares the child for the development of counting operations, but through special classes in mathematics at the preschool educational institution. Here, children learn to compare sets by their individual components. Children are given sets that differ from each other by one component - one more or one less. So, preschoolers learn to identify equalities and inequalities. Gradually, preschoolers become more interested in comparing individual quantities and sets. The preschooler does not yet have an understanding of the number.
3. Acquaintance with number. At this stage, the child gets acquainted with the formation of the number. For this, methods of comparing adjacent sets, determining equality from inequality, obtaining the result of operations - numbers are used. There is, as it were, a reverse development: the child first learns counting operations, masters the counting process, and then understands what a number is. A preschooler learns the names of numerals and learns to answer the question "How much?". At this stage, a variety of exercises are used that teach counting activities gradually, i.e. the child first counts in a certain direction, a small number of elements that increase gradually. In the course of training, the preschool teacher needs to tell the child about what counting activity is for, how it is used in various activities. This stage covers the age of four or five years.
4. The stage of acquaintance with adjacent natural numbers. About six years old, a preschooler masters a clear sequence of numbers and is able to correlate them with the components of the set. At this stage, the child is taught the formation of natural numbers. Typically, only the first five numbers are used. For training, the following method is used: a group of objects is taken, counted, one more object is added to them or one more object is subtracted from them. Then a group of other objects is taken, compared by the number of objects with the group under study. The action is determined with the numbers that need to be performed in order to increase or decrease the number of objects of one or another group, so that the number of objects of one group becomes more than the objects of another, etc.
5. Stage of development of group counting skills. Preschoolers learn to count in groups of numbers: two, three, four, five. Preschoolers learn to count not individual objects, but their totality, which consists of several components. Thus, by the age of six or seven, children come to understand that the unit of account can be not a single object, but their totality.
6. The stage of mastering the decimal number system. Preschoolers master the formation of decimal numbers, learn to form numbers by adding one. At the same time, preschoolers still lack a complete understanding of the decimal number. It is formed already in the period of education in elementary school.

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Author of this article Date of the last update of the article: 27.10.2022

Teaching preschoolers to count using project activities

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