Counting
I often go to the dollar store for inspiration, and I found these fun paper cuts and spinners on my last trip and decided to put together a math game with a rocket theme. My son likes numbers and rockets so I thought easy peasy, sure fire hit. No. Not with me but for some reason when daddy got home they played after dinner until I had to break it up for bedtime. Goes to show you that if something doesn’t go smoothly at first tweak it ( like maybe let daddy do it) and try again.
- Gather your materials. I bought these rocket cut outs but you could make them ( a helpful time saver would be to find a rocket cookie cutter and trace it), I also got the spinner at the dollar store as well. You will also need a marker.
- Number at least 2 sets of the rockets from 1-8 .
- Place dots from 1-8 on the spinner sections.
- To play: give each player 8 rocket pieces in order.
- Take turns spinning the spinner. When it lands on a section count the dots and take that number out of your line up.
- First person to have no rockets left wins.
- Also to make it more fun, my son and husband would do a count down every time they removed a rocket. They started with whatever the number they had to remove . For example if the spinner landed on a 7 they would say 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 BLAST OFF then launch the rocket into a pile, and spin the next number.
Counting Books
Goodnight Moon 123 
One, Two, Three
Mouse Count
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Teaching children about money is not a one time thing. It will take years to instill all the lessons we want them to learn, my husband is a banker and you better believe that this is but the very tip of the iceberg but we will leave lessons about investing, interest rates and such for another year or 5 ! Today we focused on learning the names and denominations of the coins and dollar bills while playing bakery.
- Gather your materials. We are using a few props for our bakery, play cookies, an apron for our baker, a cake stand and place mat, a magna doodle, real money and a little change purse.
- Start by setting your prices. I kept it simple so that we could focus on our lesson which was identifying the coins and amounts. If you wanted to focus on addition I would make the cookies cost amounts that would facilitate addition ( $1.25, 75cents etc..) but if your goal is the same as mine make them for exact coin amounts. I did make other cookies $2 but that was easy for him with the dollar bills.
- Set up your bakery. I find that when I set up the pretend play props he plays more, but some children will want to be a part of this and by all means let them.
- Take some time to go over the basics of the coins or a quick refresher.
- Put the apron on and start playing.
- We didn’t use any amounts that required him giving me the customer change but for a child who is more advanced with money than my 3 year old, that is an awesome math lesson. We did count out some pennies though.
- For younger kids you can make is simpler like I did here almost a year ago .
- When you play pretend with your child let them go off on tangents and tell you about their “character” ask them questions , and play the part. I know for some parents this can be really silly but it helps , the kids get into the lesson and forget they are even learning.
* A great follow up to this would be to go to your local bakery and continue this lesson buy buying a cookie, having your child find the right coins to do so and enjoying it together. Or make some fun Letter C cookies .
Books
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie 
by Robert Munsch is a loud and silly book, that preschoolers love! The text is perfect for a read aloud encouraging audience participation the way only Munsch can . The main character loves to play jokes on everybody but doesn’t really understand that they aren’t funny until the joke is on him. This book gives parents a easy going way to talk about practical jokes and when they are and aren’t funny.
Mr. Cookie Baker
This is the first time I have played a dice game with my son. I decided to incorporate fun manipulatives to help reinforce proper one to one correspondence. He is still at the stage that most preschoolers stay at for some time where they will sometimes count and re-count objects in groups instead of counting each object only once. To help teach proper grouping, using manipulatives that they can physically move from one group to another as they count will naturally force them to stop. This gives them a chance to be successful with little parental/ teacher involvement and develops pride and confidence in their own abilities! Also frogs and snakes are fun!
- Gather your materials. I am using 2 over sized dice ( you can use just one die to keep it simpler), some card stock, scissors, double stick tape, markers, plastic frogs and snakes, and 3 containers.
- Start by cutting the card stock into a size that will cover your die- if you are using small dice you can simply use little stickers. It’s really not a must to have a 2nd die with the animals , I decided to use both to give the activity some variety. Using just one with just one sort of manipulative to count would be perfectly fine. If you are using two make 3 pictures for each .
- Tape onto your die.
- Play! Roll the dice – see which animal you have to count and how many you need to count out!
- Count the dots… 5!
- Count out the snakes!
A variation for younger ages would be to ONLY use the dice with pictures and simply have the child sort through the two different animals, then count with you the two separate piles.
Song
Um um! Went the little green frog one day,
Um um , went the little green frog.
Um um went the little green frog one day,
and they all went um um ahhh!
But we all know frogs go ,
la di da di da,
la di da di da
la di da di da
We all know frogs go la di da di da,
They don’t go um um ah!!!
Frog Books !
Too Many Frogs
Fribbity Ribbit!
Little Critter Where Is My Frog? 
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Going to the grocery store while pregnant can be dangerous, I left the store yesterday not with 1 but 2 bags of mini marshmallows. Buyers regret stepped in but then I thought I could make a fun Easter craft with them too. So glad I got both bags because my son loved this and I think the Easter egg is adorable. Whenever I do crafts with tempting treats like marshmallows I give my son a number he needs to add to it before he can pop one in his mouth! So we limit gorging and practice counting.
- Gather your materials. You will need some white and colored mini marshmallows, construction paper, glue and a marker.
- Start by drawing an Easter egg on your paper.
- Add glue along the line.
- Add your white marshmallows along the edge. We did 15 then ate one, 21 then ate one , and 17 and ate one. Yes I did help too. My son said ” Mommy I will share my activity with you and tell daddy we shared.”
- Next ask your child how many stripes they want. I caution you perhaps give them a range, my son said 8 and wouldn’t budge. I ended up doing 3 rows because 8 is a lot for a 3 year old to do.
- Add your colored marshmallows. We decided to add a sorting element by saying the lines can be any color, but it must be all one color. So my son was forced to sort the colors when adding them. Worked great! With younger toddlers I’d just let them go for it. Older children can add a patterning lesson in too.
- Keep going!
- Let dry.
I want to know YOUR favorite Easter books!
Leave a short review of your favorite Easter book in the comments and I will feature it ( and a link to you) in a reader’s favorites section of an upcoming post.
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This number activity combines number recognition, counting and one to one correspondence. All preschool math skills that are the building blocks for learning addition, subtraction and more complicated operations. This activity is easy to make simpler by reducing how many bugs you use, and using smaller numbers. If your child has mastered these skills make the bugs into equations. Write 2+4 on the bug and have them use the dots as manipulatives and solve the equation with them!
- Gather your materials. You will need some black, red and yellow construction paper, a marker, googly eyes and glue. I also used a piece of cardboard to anchor all 4 bugs.
- Start by drawing the outline of a lady bug on one of the colored sheets of construction paper.
- Cut out all 4 bugs and glue on the cardboard, add smiles if you want!
- Cut out black dots for the bugs, after step 5 you may need to cut a few extra out but I found it easier to keep the activity flowing than make my son wait while I cut out the exact numbers he chose. We had a few left overs actually.
- Ask your child to choose a number for each bug. By letting your child choose the numbers it gives them some control which I am sure you agree is a great thing for preschoolers! Write the numbers out on each bug. If your child is able, have them write the number even if it’s huge and messy encourage them to try!
- Add glue and the dots to each bug. Have your child count out the number as they add the glue. If your child needs some help with counting , do the glue yourself so your child is simply matching up the dots to the glue.
- Encourage your child to count out loud as they add the dots, especially with preschoolers who have a tendency to skip numbers if they are counting out loud, you can intervene and encourage them to start again. Use gentle corrections and lots of praise. By adding the dots one and a time this encourages one to one correspondence naturally.
- After all the spots have been added to the bugs add glue for the googly eyes.
- Add the eyes and let dry.
Need a book about bugs to continue this lesson?
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