Fun Math Activities For Preschoolers
Math is a subject that will come in handy all our lives. We apply basic math functions in our daily lives while managing money, shopping and even cooking. Preschool is the right age to introduce your child to the wonderful world of math. While they will learn all this in school, it’s always good to get a head start using math activities for preschoolers. Here are a few super fun math activities for preschoolers that are simple and will help them learn some basic concepts of math.
List of Math Activities for Preschoolers
When your child is a preschooler, all they love to do is play. But don’t worry, playing can be educational too. Check out these fun math activities for preschoolers that’ll help them fall in love with math.
- Counting and Sorting with Marbles
- Graphing
- Color by Number
- Spring Math Activity for Preschoolers: Popsicle Stick Geometry
- Thanksgiving Math Activity for Preschoolers: Counting Marshmallows
- Winter Math Activity for Preschoolers: Counting Snowballs
- Christmas Math Activity for Preschoolers: Fractions and Measurements
Counting and Sorting with Marbles
This is one of the simplest math activities for preschoolers and helps them learn two basic concepts of math. Kids will have to sort colorful marbles and place them in the right slot in the right amount. You’ll need a large white sheet of paper, a marker and some blue, yellow, red and green marbles to perform this activity.
Sorting
Set the sheet of paper on a flat surface and draw 4 large circles on it. Name the circles blue, yellow, red and green, respectively. To make it easier for your child, you can fill the circles with the respective color. Place a heap of marbles in front of your child and ask them to sort it colorwise. For example: Ask your child to place blue marbles in the blue circle and green marbles in the green circle and so on.
Counting
If your child can already count, you can make this activity more challenging. Ask your child to count and place a certain number of marbles in each of the circles. For example: Ask your preschooler to count 5 yellow marbles and place them in the yellow circle and 3 red marbles in the red circle.
If you don’t have colored marbles on hand, you can do this activity with colorful m & m candies too. You can give them the m & m’s for every right answer they get. Check out Osmo for some more counting activities for preschoolers.
Here is a counting worksheet for preschoolers:
Graphing
While graphs and pie charts are concepts they learn much later, it doesn’t hurt to introduce it to them early. And you can make it very easy and fun by helping your children graph the different kinds of transportation or fruits or even gumballs.
You’ll need a large sheet of paper, a marker and different colored apples to perform this activity. Place the paper on a flat surface and mark three columns on the sheet. Draw a red apple at the bottom of the first column, a green apple in the second column and a pink apple in the third column.
Place the different colored apples in front of the child and ask them to place it in the appropriate column. You can make it more challenging by asking them to count the number of apples in each column. This is one of the most fun fall math activities for preschoolers, when apples are in season.
Color by Number
Coloring and drawing are one among a child’s favorite activities. Use this to your advantage and help your preschooler learn about numbers and their order with color by number pages. This is one of the best math activities for preschoolers to enhance their number recognition skills. Additionally, this activity also helps the child learn the correct sequence of numbers and improves their fine motor skills.
Spring Math Activity for Preschoolers: Popsicle Stick Geometry
Geometry is all about shapes and kids love learning new shapes. Kids already have experience designing and building things with their legos and building blocks. So, creating geometrical shapes from popsicle sticks will be right in their alley! To perform this activity, you’ll need some washi tape, popsicle sticks and marker pens.
Cover each of the popsicle sticks with some washi tape. Using the marker, write “Square” in bold letters on 4 popsicle sticks. Now, write triangle on 3 popsicle sticks and a rectangle on 6 popsicle sticks and so on. Help your child to stick the 4 popsicle sticks with “Square” written on them, to form a square. Repeat the activity to make a triangle, rectangle and any other geometrical shape of your choice.
Looking for more shape learning activities for kids? Try these preschool shapes worksheets to test their knowledge. If they get tired of geometrical shapes, let your child unleash their creativity with these popsicle stick crafts for kids.
Thanksgiving Math Activity for Preschoolers: Counting Marshmallows
Thanksgiving is a great time for family, food and friends. In all the merriment, children usually forget all about learning. How about doing a Thanksgiving math activity for preschoolers? If your preschooler is getting in the way of you prepping for the holiday, get them to help you. Make a sweet potato casserole and play a counting marshmallows game with them.
Ask your preschooler to pick a certain number of marshmallows to put on your casserole. You can turn it into a riddle too.
For example: I need some marshmallows for this pie, I’m between three and five. Your child should then hand you four marshmallows.
Along with math activities, improve your child’s vocabulary with this Thanksgiving crossword puzzle.
Winter Math Activity for Preschoolers: Counting Snowballs
Winter is a great time to play some math-themed games outdoors. All that snow makes is perfect for learning shapes and counting outdoors. Kids love to play with snow, so let’s have some fun in the snow and sun. You’ll need foam snowmen, markers and lots of snowballs. Help your child make several snowballs and store them in two separate pails.
Write the numbers from 1 to 6 on the foam snowmen and arrange them side by side in order on the ground. Now ask your child to place the appropriate number of snowballs on each of the snowman’s heads. For example: Your child should arrange four snowballs on top of the 4th snowman. Also check out these Christmas math worksheets.
Christmas Math Activity for Preschoolers: Fractions and Measurements
Christmas is a time when there’s a lot of baking and cooking going on at home. This is a great time to introduce your child to whole numbers and fractions. Get your preschooler to help you out in the kitchen while you bake their favorite cookies. Ask your child to help you measure the ingredients using the measuring cups and spoons. For example: Ask them to give you a cup of flour or a teaspoon of sugar.
To help them understand the concept of whole numbers and fractions, start off by filling one cup with water. Then place a half cup of water next to it and teach them the difference between half and full. If this proves too confusing you can always ask them to count eggs. Another cool thing you can do to make this more interesting, ask them to tell you what comes first, second or third in the ingredients list.
Learning math can be very easy. It depends on how much fun you add to the learning process. For more activities, games and worksheets that make learning fun, check our kids learning section.
Frequently Asked Questions on Fun math activities for preschoolers
What are some of the Fun math activities for preschoolers?
Some of the Fun math activities for preschoolers are counting the numbers and arranging them according to the colors, popsicle sticks geometric shapes, Thanksgiving math games, winter math games, spring math games, etc.
Why should math activities for preschoolers be introduced?
Fun math activities for preschoolers must be introduced because they help them to understand the complex concepts in a fun and simple way without stressing them much. Kids also learn the names of geometric shapes and patterns.
What are the advantages of Fun math activities for preschoolers?
The benefits of Fun math activities for preschoolers are that they learn to recognize geometric patterns and shapes, sizes, colors and numbers. Kids also learn to count the numbers from 1 to 20 and eventually learn from 1 to 100.