Number Recognition
Clothespins are some of my favorite tools for learning and this easy math activity uses them along with your child’s imagination and love of mundane adult things like hanging clean socks on the line. This number matching activity wasn’t easy for my daughter at first but after she got the hang of it it was a breeze. The turning point was folding the sock over the line and then she could pin it herself. This can be set up, played with and taken down over and over.
- Gather your materials. You will need some fabric paint, socks ( try the dollar store if you don’t have extras at home), some wired ribbon, marker, a basket, clothes pins and something to secure the ribbon to the wall.
- Start by painting numbers on your socks. I let ours dry for 2 full days… just in case.
- Write the numbers on your clothes pins. I did 2 sets one for my daughter and the other with simple equations for my son. He wasn’t into this activity “It’s kinda for little kids Mom.” so I will use this clothes pins for a “big kid” activity like this one instead.
- Set your clothesline up and pop the socks in the basket. Invite your little learner to hang out the wash.
- The way I had it set up originally required me to help her and it slowed things down and she was frustrated not being able to do it herself.
- So we switched things up and she was clearly thrilled.
- I took all the pins off and put the socks on the line folded over.
- Then she grabbed the matching pin and clipped it on.
After that she was golden and quickly matched the numbers up. It took a lot of coordination to get the correct pin on. 
Using holidays like Halloween as a theme for great learning activities is a sure fire hit in my house. My daughter who is 2 is always excited to do any project but my almost 6 year old is a lot more picky. This Halloween math activity was such a hit that when I asked my son to rate it 1-100 he gave it a 100 without hesitation! Better yet it’s pretty easy to make , adapt for various levels and frugal too.
- Gather your materials. You will need some craft paper , markers , white card stock ( or paper plates !), scissors, painter’s tape and something to attach the house to a wall. I used push pins but more painter’s tape would work too.
- Cut out simple ghost shapes from the paper plates / card stock. Add faces and numbers. I did 1-10 but you can write whatever numbers your child is working on.
- Draw a haunted house on craft paper. Mine took 3 tries the first was so bad I should have taken a picture to make you all laugh. The other ones became coloring paper for my toddler.
- Write out simple equations , number words or even just numbers to match up. You will see further down that for a toddler like my daughter you don’t even need anything to match. Just play with the numbers on the ghosts.
- Add painter’s tape to the ghosts and on the haunted house where you will place the equations.
- Add the equations to the house, put the ghosts next to it ready to be put in the house and call your little mathematician.
- As soon as my son saw the activity he said it was too easy and it probably was. I grabbed my iPhone and asked him if he wanted me to time him. His face lit up. I don’t suggest timing children who don’t want to be timed or who will feel negatively pressured . Matching the words with the numbers on the ghosts was an easy task for my son but he has a competitive spirit and timing him made it more fun because it made it challenging.
- He flew through it. Placing the ghosts on top of the matching words.
- Next I switched the words on the house to simple equations.
These were not going to be as easy and I told him for this time we would not be timing it. I think that if I’d done the harder task first he would have gotten frustrated when a few of the harder equations didn’t come to him immediately. 
- After my son was done I removed all the tape and equations so the house was clear , and put the ghosts back on the wall. Then invited my daughter who is 2 to come and put the ghosts in the haunted house. It was perfect for her. She grabbed the ghosts and named the numbers she knew and asked me to confirm the numbers she didn’t. She was very specific about where they should be. I was thrilled that they both had fun with math at their own levels of learning!
Ghosts In The House
Ghosts in the House! 
by Kim
Looking for a fun way to practice number recognition? Then look no further. Playing with these letter and number recognition puzzles is a fun way to get little fingers and mind active. This is an activity you will want to do ahead of time and have ready for the little ones.
Grab a piece of corrugated cardboard, a marker, and a pair of scissors. You can use posterboard or craft foam, but corrugated cardboard is so much thicker and it is easier for your child to see that they are matching the pieces up correctly.
Draw some leaves on the cardboard. Then draw a line through them. I like to do a squiggly line to help the pieces “lock” in together better. Now draw a number on one side of the leaf and dots corresponding to that number on the other side.
Cut out the leaves. This is the part where you will be glad you are not making these pieces with your children. Cutting the cardboard can be tricky because it is so thick.
You can also draw and cut out leaves with upper and lower case letters to match up.
*VARIATION- Math equations would offer a more challenging task for older siblings that want to join in the fun, too. For younger children (and ambitious caregivers) you could color the leaves for color matching.
Cut along the line you drew that divides the leaf.
Now divide your leaf pieces into two sections. One section with the numbers written on them and one section with the dots drawn on them, or upper case letters and lower case letters.
Watch your child match them up. It is fun to watch them match different ways each time. Sometimes my daughter would match by number recognition and then counting the dots. While other times she matched the shape of the leaves.
Any way they match is great practice for reasoning and logic skills. Putting the pieces together make great motor skill exercise, too.
Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.
Do you remember paint by numbers? I used to love doing them but mixing the numbers up ( yeah I was that kid) my son however is all about numbers and this was a fun way to make something festive but also let his interest in math be spotlighted. You could do this with shapes, or letters too. I didn’t tell him that the final result was a Christmas tree so it was fun to have him “decode” the craft as we went.
- Gather your materials. You will need some pom-poms in different colors, cups to sort them in, construction paper, glue and a marker.
- Start by sorting your pom-poms by color into different cups, write different numbers on each cup. I wrote 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 on mine since we’d just been chatting about counting by 10s. To have your child help sort the pom poms just put on of each color in one cup to use as a guide.
- Write out the numbers on the paper in a design. I did green outline, with random colors and green in the middle.
- Start gluing the pom poms on using the code.
- hmmmm what could it be?
- All done! Let dry.
Great Christmas Book!
a creature was stirring
One of the things I love most about blogging is how one post will inspire another and not just on the same blog but from one blogger to another . I wasn’t going to post this yet but when Kristina from Toddler Approved posted this Corn Roll game that we inspired with our Candy Corn Counting I knew I needed to share this game. Also we have been playing it a lot, and not just because the tv is broken, because it’s fun!
- Gather your materials. You will need some paper, markers, marshmallows or even cotton balls, a die and someone to play against.
- Start by drawing Santa , I couldn’t find a good printable with a beard big enough for the numbers. Which was good since my printer is out of ink anyway. So I drew the santas.
- Add numbers.
- I put the sheets on clip board to keep them from blowing around, but you could laminated them or pop them on a cookie sheet with some magnets too.
- The objective is simple you want to fill up Santa’s beard first but covering all the numbers with marshmallows. The way you do that is to roll that number on the die.
- Roll.
- Add the marshmallow… oh and look who is getting a little fine motor practice too. I’m so sneaky.
- We ended up playing a few times and by request one was a boys against girls.
My daughter even rolled the die for the girls’ team!
I love games like this because they use a few novelties like Santa and marshmallows but are still packed with learning not only math but about sportsmanship and good game play.
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