Counting maths activities

10 Fun And Educational Counting Activities Kids Can Do At Home

Watching your child enter the wonderful world of counting activities can be equal parts amazing and overwhelming. Math is a whole language in and of itself. Learning how to read and “speak” math will take time!

But have no fear — HOMER is here with 10 fun, educational, and exciting counting activities to make your child’s math learning feel less like a roller coaster and more like a walk through the park.

10 Counting Activities To Try At Home

1) Count The Pattern

What You’ll Need

• A piece of paper
• A pen for tracking tallies

What To Do

This counting activity can be done inside your house on a rainy day or during a walk around the neighborhood. All you’ll need is your paper, pen, and sharp eyes.

For our example, we’ll go on a nature walk. You will start by saying, “I spy with my little eye something [color] … how many can you find?” To start, we’ll use the example of yellow objects.

Hearing your hint, your child will rush around to count how many yellow flowers, coats, signs, cars, or other objects they can find.

For young kids, their goal can be to find as many yellow items up to 10 as fast as they can. If your child is a little older, their goal can be 20.

You can also switch it up by exchanging the color for other objects. For example, they can try and count the number of dogs, fire hydrants, sidewalk cracks, or birds flying by.

2) Counting Cityscape

What You’ll Need

• Legos or building blocks
• A pair of dice
• Sticky notes
• Pen or marker

What To Do

For this activity, your child will start by rolling the dice.

They’ll count the dots of whatever number they roll and then stack the matching amount of building blocks into a tall tower. Then, they’ll write out the number of blocks on a sticky note and stick it to the top of their tower like a flag.

This will showcase a couple of different things to your child: one-to-one correspondence and subitizing.

Subitizing refers to a child’s ability to see a small collection of objects and innately understand how many there are without meticulously counting. Subitizing works when reading dice as well.

Encourage your child to repeat this process a few times so they begin to build their own cityscape. If all of their numbers are correct, their reward will be to play King Kong and smash it all down!

3) Ice Cream Cone Counting

What You’ll Need

• 5 triangle-shaped paper cut-outs (for the cones)
• 15 different-colored circles (for the ice cream)
• Glue or tape (if you want to preserve their work!)
• A sheet of paper with numbers 1 – 5 written across the bottom
• Leave lots of space in-between!

What To Do

The next best thing to real ice cream cones? Making your own crazy flavors out of paper!

Your child will use the number line on the paper to guide their ice cream assembly. So, for the 1 space, your child will place one ice cream cone and the number of scoops matching the spot on the number line.

They’ll continue up the number line, making ice creams with 2, 3, 4, and eventually 5 scoops. That’s one big ice cream cone! For older kids, you can bump this activity up to 10.

You can take this activity further by turning your ice cream making into a business! Your child can play shopkeeper and you can puppeteer different stuffed animals to come in and order.

Your child will make ice cream cones based on their fuzzy customers’ requests!

4) Penny Toss

What You’ll Need

• 10 pennies
• A plastic cup or jar (for shaking)
• A piece of paper
• A pen

What To Do

Place the pennies in your shaker jar. Tell your child to shake them all around before turning them upside down and throwing the pennies down onto the floor.

You will be playing against one another: one person for heads and one person for tails.

Then, they’ll take a tally of how many pennies land on heads vs. tails. They’ll count their tallies and circle which one got more in each round. The first person to have “their side” of the penny reach 20 wins!

5) Fill The Cup

What You’ll Need

• Popcorn or other light but bulky snack
• 2 plastic cups
• A pair of dice

What To Do

You and your child will each have your own plastic cup and a die.

You’ll start by rolling your die one person at a time. Whatever number you get, you’ll count that many pieces of popcorn into your cup. The idea is to see whose cup fills up first!

The players all get rewarded by eating their whole cup of popcorn at the end. What’s better than snacktime and math time?

6) Number Maze

What You’ll Need

• Chalk
• Sunshine (this activity is done outdoors)
• A stack of cards (face cards removed)

What To Do

You’ll use your chalk to draw out a grid. You can draw the grid in any form you like, but there should be at least 10 blocks. For more advanced counters, you can expand to 20 blocks.

When filling up the grid, you’ll want to mix and match the placement of the numbers. You don’t want to write them in an obvious sequence, as that will defeat the purpose of the game.

You will be the road map for how your child will get out of the maze. Your child must “escape” the maze by hopping between the numbers you call out.

You’ll call out numbers based on whatever card you draw from the pile. There’s no need to do all 40 cards! Start with 10 cards (all 10 numbers) and if your child really enjoys the game, then try 20.

7) Swat That Number

• What You’ll Need
• A fly swatter
• Sticky notes
• A marker

What To Do

Write numbers 1 – 10 (or more if your child is learning larger numbers) onto separate sticky notes. Stick them to a wall with a wide space in front of it so there’s room for your child to play.

Call out a number or roll a die. Whatever number is chosen, your child must swat the corresponding sticky note with the fly swatter as hard as they can.

This counting activity will get them moving, thinking, and having a blast!

8) Planting With Numbers

What You’ll Need

• 10 small cups, numbered 1 – 10
  • Clear cups work best
• Seeds for a quick-growing plant
  • Snap peas
  • Radish
  • Squash
• Soil

What To Do

Fill each cup with an appropriate amount of soil. Then, based on the number on each of the cups, your child will plant the same amount of seeds into the labeled cups until all the cups are filled.

The best part? They’ll get to watch their seeds flourish over the next couple of weeks!

They can make their own determinations about which cups grew the best. Were the seeds in the 10 cup too crowded? Were they the perfect amount? You’ll have to wait and see together!

9) Counting With PlayDoh

What You’ll Need

• PlayDoh
• Cutouts of numbers 1 – 10 (or plastic fridge magnets)
• Toothpicks (for kids four and up)

What To Do

For this activity, your child will be making some “spiky” PlayDoh hamburgers. They’ll form the PlayDoh into 10 separate patties. The color, shape, and size are up to them!

With the finished patties, they’ll press a number 1 – 10 into each patty. Then, depending on the patty’s number, they’ll add that many spikes (toothpicks) to it, continuing until all of the patties have the correct amount of toothpicks.

Bon appetit!

This activity helps your child see the relationship between the face value of a number and how many objects it represents.

Quick tip: You may want to avoid using toothpicks if your child is younger than four years old. You can use buttons or other small objects instead.

10) Number Olympics

What You’ll Need

• A pair of dice or number spinner

What To Do

This game is a great way to have your child learn and burn some energy at the same time (we know you’ll thank us later!).

You will use the number spinner or dice to roll a random number. That number will dictate how many of a certain athletic move your child will complete.

You can use any move that gets your child excited to play — jumping jacks, squats, log rolls, spins, etc.

You can even take the game outside. For example, your child could do a certain number of jumps on the trampoline or have to score a basketball goal a certain number of times.

Get creative, get jumping, and get counting!

Counting Activities For Endless Fun

We hope these counting activities sparked your imagination for ways to make math exciting and fun for your child.

As your partner in learning, we at HOMER know that there will be weeks when there’s just not enough time in the day to grow snap peas or build Lego cities. For those extra busy days in your routine, our personalized learning center is full of counting activities for your child.

Your young learner doesn’t always have to play a complex game to develop their math skills. Our Learn & Grow App will make sure that they get there (and have a blast while doing it!).

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30 Hands-On Counting Activities for Kids -

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Preschool/Pre-K

Some kids (and adults too!) have negative feelings about math. It can seem abstract and difficult. But there are lots of fun ways to make it less intimidating. Starting with the very basics, using play and activities there are lots of hands-on counting activities for kids! We’ve done so many activities to teach counting! There are way too many to list them all but here are a few of our themed favorites.

30+ Hands-On Counting Activities

More Counting Activities

Below you’ll find some of the best ideas to include counting skills within other activities like games, crafts, stories and sensory play.

Math Caps: A Math Facts Game from Mosswood Connections

Get a full-year of math activities

A full-year of kindergarten math activities: perfect for small groups, partner activities and independent centers.

12 Skill Packs

20+ Activities each

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Easy Preschool Watermelon Counting Game from Homeschool Preschool

Spider Web Number Lacing Activity from Artsy Momma

Fine Motor Activity: Turkey Feather Counting from Artsy Momma

Nuts and Bolts More or Less Game from Preschool Powol Packets

Flower Counting Activity from Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

Counting Game for One-to-One Correspondence from Buggy and Buddy

Contact Paper Fall Tree Counting Game from Simple Fun for Kids

Felt Leaf Number Line Activity from Something 2 Offer

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers  from Simple Fun for Kids

Simple Montessori Counting Activity from My Mundane and Miraculous Life

100 Items to Use to Count to 100 from Edventures with Kids

Learning to Count with Pipe Cleaners from School Time Snippets

Hands-on Preschool Counting with Rings on Fingers from School Time Snippets

Skip Counting Activities from What Do We Do All Day

Gross Motor Counting Activities

Teach Counting with a Stair Jumping Game from Homeschool Preschool

Teach Counting with Simon Says from Homeschool Preschool

Gross Motor Math Game: Counting Action Dice from Buggy and Buddy

Hands-On Crafts for Counting

Recycled K Cup Frog Craft and Counting Activity  from Artsy Momma

Spider Counting Craft from Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

Pretend Play for Counting

Preschool Math Activity with Bear Counts from Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

Personalized Felt Counting Set with Ten Apples Up On Top from Buggy and Buddy

Pretend Play and Number Recognition  from My Mundane and Miraculous Life

Counting 1 to 5 with 5 Little Ducks from Red Ted Art

Hands-On Sensory Activities for Counting

Exploring Numbers with Playdough from Simple Fun for Kids

Dinosaur Sensory Bin: Counting and Math from My Mundane and Miraculous Life

Our Favorite Counting Books:

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Once your child’s creativity is sparked with this fun activity, take it a step further with these engaging resources:

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 Counting Animals on the Farm: Counting book for kids, Learn numbers from 1 to10, Counting Animals Counting Crocodiles Ten Black Dots Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb (Bright & Early Board Books) Curious George Learns to Count from 1 to 100 Big Book Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3

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With a little creativity math doesn’t have to be intimidating at all. These hands-on counting activities are sure to be a hit!

More Activities You’ll Love:

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Arithmetic operations on numbers

Tips → Useful information → Arithmetic → Arithmetic operations

Finding one new number from several given numbers is called arithmetic operation . In arithmetic, six operations are considered: addition , subtraction , multiplication , division , exponentiation , extracting the root .

1. Addition . This action consists in the fact that for several numbers, called terms, a number is found, called their sum.

Example : 4+3=7, where 4 and 3 are terms and 7 is their sum.

2. Subtraction is an action by which the required term (difference) is found from a given sum (reduced) and a given term (subtracted).
This is the inverse of addition.

Example : 7 - 3 = 4, where 7 is the minuend, 3 is the subtrahend, and 4 is the difference.

3. Multiplication. To multiply a certain number (multiplicand) by an integer (multiplier) means to repeat the multiplicand by the summand as many times as there are units in the multiplier. The result of a multiplication is called a product.

Example : 2 ∙ 3 ​​= 6, where 2 is the multiplicand, 3 is the multiplier, and 6 is the product. (2 ∙ 3 ​​= 2 + 2+ 2 = 6)

If the roles of the multiplier and the multiplicand are reversed, then the product remains the same. Therefore, the multiplier and multiplicand are also called factors .

Example : 2 ∙ 3 ​​= 3 ∙ 2, i.e. (2 + 2 + 2 = 3 + 3)

For example : 2 ∙ 1 = 2, 44 ∙ 1 = 44, 13 ∙ 1 = 13.

4. By dividing by a given product (dividend) and a given factor (divisor), the desired factor (quotient) is found.
This is the inverse of multiplication.

Example : 8 : 2 = 4, where 8 is the dividend, 2 is the divisor, and 4 is the quotient.

Checking division : the product of divisor 2 and quotient 4 gives dividend 8. 2 ∙ 4 = 8 is called exact , or that the first number is evenly divisible by (or simply divisible) by the second.

For example : 35 is divisible (integer) by 5, the quotient is the integer 7.

The second number is called a divisor of the first, and the first is called a multiple of the second.

In many cases, without dividing, it is possible to find out whether one integer is completely divisible by another (see divisibility criteria).