Hands-On Math Activities for Your Kindergartener
Build an early love of math by giving your little one fun and engaging ways to learn important skills. These hands-on math activities for kindergarteners use a variety of learning styles to help all kids connect with key concepts. They’re entertaining, too, so kids can play while they learn.
Build a Number City
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Use LEGO bricks or building blocks for this cool hands-on activity from Cinta + Co. Write out a series of numbers, then stack up the blocks side by side to build a colorful and unique cityscape. This helps kids work on recognizing numerals and comparing numbers to see which is larger or smaller.
Bonus Activity Idea: Take a walk in a neighborhood with lots of tall buildings, and count the windows to find out how many floors each one has. Have kids draw the skyline of one of the streets, labeling each building with its corresponding numbers of floors.
Stack 100 Plastic Cups
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For some reason, kids absolutely love stacking plastic cups into towers and pyramids. That makes them the perfect inexpensive DIY math manipulatives. Simply label cups clearly with the numbers 1 to 100. Then, challenge kids to stack them up, knock them down, and stack them again! Hands-on math activities for kindergarteners like this one from Kindergarten Smorgasboard also sneak in fine motor skill practice and even some early STEM skills.
Bonus Activity Idea: Have your child stack these cups in a variety of ways to practice even more concepts. Break the cups into groups of 5 or 10 for early exploration of skip counting and division. Try counting and stacking backwards from 10 or even 100. Consider using different colors for the numbers 1-9, 10-19, 20-29, etc. to reinforce the idea of number groups. Or, for a real challenge, see if they can collect items to fill each cup to match the number written on it.
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Make 10 With Sticky Notes
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When kids learn how to “make 10,” they’re starting down the road to mastering addition. For this simple “making 10” activity from Life Over C’s, all you need is a pack of sticky notes.
First, have your child label them with the numbers 1 to 9 (do multiple sets of these). Then, ask them to put together two sticky notes that make a total of ten. Try to make as many different matches as possible.
Bonus tip: Hide the sticky notes around the house and have your child search for them before they start making matches.
Bonus Activity Idea: Introduce this activity by making sticky notes with sets of dots on them instead of numerals. Ask your child to count the number of dots on one sticky note, then continue counting as they move on to the next note. This reinforces the idea of “counting on,” (counting up beginning with any number).
Use Divided Plates to Learn Number Bonds
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Pick up divided plates with two smaller sections and one larger one, or make your own by marking paper plates into sections. Then, use small items like beans, candies, or mini erasers to explore number bonds.
Put a small number of erasers into one small section and ask your child to count them. Then, put more erasers into the other small section, and count them up too. Finally, put the total number of erasers all together into the big section, and count them up. You’ve just made a number bond! Head over to Just Teachy to see more ideas for teaching number bonds.
Bonus Activity Idea: These same plates can help kids learn about decomposing numbers, which is the opposite of number bonds. Start by placing a number of small items into the large section of the plate. Then, break those into two groups in the smaller sections. Move on to placing a total number in the large section and a smaller number in one of the small sections, then asking your child to figure out how many items should go into the remaining section. Now you’re working on subtraction too.
Practice Place Value With Cereal
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Take a tip from School Time Snippets and use cereal like Cheerios or Froot Loops to work on place value. String 10 pieces onto a pipe cleaner to represent tens, and use individual pieces for the ones. Then, lay them out side by side to see a total number. For instance, one pipe cleaner string plus 9 individual pieces equals the number 19. Challenge your child to break down every number up to 100 in this way.
Bonus Activity Idea: Try using LEGO bricks in a similar way. You’ll need pieces with 10 studs (the raised circles on the top of the brick), either all in a row (10×1) or rectangular (5 x 2). Use small pieces with one stud for the ones. Or, hit the hardware store for long bolts and matching nuts, like The Measured Mom did.
Have a Shape Snack
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Make snacktime a learning experience by looking for shapes in your treats. Chiêu Anh Urban Books has a simple printable template you can use, or simply ask children to describe the shapes of the foods in front of them. Use small cookie cutters for more detailed shapes like stars and hearts.
Bonus Activity Idea: Hold a shape hunt anytime, anywhere. Whether you’re at the grocery store, the library, or at home, ask your child to look around and find circles, triangles, squares, and more. You can even introduce 3-D shapes like spheres and cubes. Have them draw the items they find for even more interactive fun.
Craft and Measure Pipe Cleaner Flowers
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At this age, children don’t need to be overly focused on exact units of measurement. Instead, this is the time to make sure they understand the concepts of length, height, and weight.
Kindergarten hands-on math activities for measurement should focus on understanding ideas like taller and shorter, lighter or heavier, and so on. This sweet idea from Planning Playtime is a great way to do that. Build pipe cleaner flowers, then stick them upright in playdough to compare heights.
Bonus Activity Idea: Non-standard measurement uses methods other than rulers or measuring tapes to compare items. Kids can cut pieces of string the same length as several items from around the house, then lay the strings side by side to compare.
Another kindergarten favorite is a DIY balance scale made by hanging two paper cups on either side of a clothes hanger. Suspend the hanger on a knob, then let kids put items into each cup to find out which weighs more.
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