There is a whole lot of learning happening in this activity but first let’s talk about Subitizing! The ability to recognize a small amount of items (up to 5 or 6) without counting! Just think about how long it would take if we couldn’t visualize amounts and we had to stop and count every single time we saw a small group of items!

Think about if you saw 10 crackers on a plate–most likely you couldn’t just say there is 10 right there but you could visually see a group of 5 and another group of 5 for a total of 10–which is a lot faster than counting every single time! This activity also works on number recognition, fine motor and matching!

To play, I had Ollie (4) roll the dice and see if he could quickly identify the amount. Once he did he matched the amount to a numeral on the stickers and then found a matching amount like the amount he just rolled on the dice and would put the sticker on there to represent “it’s number.” Easy, educational, engaging!

Calling all baseball lovers! Since baseball season has begun I thought we would try doing something with baseballs and this pattern activity is so simple and easy!  You can make up whatever kind of pattern you want and your kiddos can finish it off by drawing the stitches!

We have had a mix of snow (still) and rain the last few days and Ollie has been loving wearing his rain boots EVERYWHERE so it gave me the idea to make him a rain boot match! Very simple matching the amount of polka dots to the amount of lines to work on one to one correspondence!

Toward of the end of the year in preschool as my students get better at sorting, I usually begin introducing Venn Diagrams. I love Venn diagrams because it visually allows students to organize information and recognize relationships amongst 3 sets of items by breaking them apart which is a higher order thinking skill.

It is like we are “visually” thinking of the differences and the similarities at the same time! I started pretty simple for Ollie (4) by sorting out shapes just like I would for my students. He was supposed to notice the “blue circles” but then break that apart into blue items and circles.I just used foam sticker shapes and he got to peel off the back (fine motor practice) and sort them into the Venn Diagram. For a 4 year old, he did pretty well with this! You could use cut outs of paper, toys, just something that has two different characteristics that can be broken down.

Let’s ride the rollercoaster! This is a simple and easy activity to practice shape recognition, matching and fine motor! A great “ride” into the weekend:)

**I drew the rollercoaster and the shapes on both the rollercoaster and the dot stickers ( you could use paper circles as well and kids could glue them on). Ollie was to hop on the rollercoaster and follow the ride by matching the stickers to the shape!

Ollie has been into airplanes and flying things around the house lately so I made him his own set of “number airplanes.”  He really thought these were the coolest airplanes! This activity was great because it works on the fine motor “pinching the clothespin” and math (counting, one to one correspondence, number recognition). Learning CAN BE FUN!

I had some star stickers laying around so I just added them to the popsicle sticks and wrote the corresponding number on the clothespin and the boys were to match the stick and the clothespin to create an airplane!

I started the Monday after Easter off with a simple anytime activity…sorting! I grabbed our favorite manipulatives (buttons) and some pom poms to sort! I mixed the pom poms and buttons together to help my kids understand that the medium of one thing might not be the same size as a medium of another thing the same goes for small and large things–it just allows their brains to expand their thinking a little. I hope everyone who celebrates Easter had a wonderful holiday and to others I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Both of my boys enjoyed doing this activity, even my 6 year old who can cut pretty well enjoyed it! It involves fine motor strengthening while recognizing numbers, counting and naming numbers. Can’t get much easier for a little fine motor and math fun! Oh, and I also snuck in a pattern with the number colors.

Help the bunny find it’s missing egg! I quickly made this activity while Ollie ate breakfast this morning (that is how quick a set-up can be).  Simply draw bunnies with different patterns on their ears and a matching egg and MATCH based off of the patterns! It is a rainy cold day here today so there might be a lot more of these simple activities throughout the day but you can’t beat the easy set-up!

Super easy for a Friday. Ollie (3) worked on counting forward and counting backward. Counting backward is just as important as forward but so easily can be forgotten about. Ollie used beads to represent the numbers but any small manipulatives would work.  Another idea would be to start counting at 3-13 and back from 13-3 so kids learn to start counting and subtracting from other numbers besides 1 and 10 🙂