Have you ever watched a preschooler count objects? I’m guessing yes if you are reading this. So you know that it’s prevalent for children to rote count faster than they are touching the objects they are counting, resulting in a much larger number than the number of things they are counting. This is because children have learned to count by rote, not with actual objects using one-to-one correspondence. This activity helps to fix that! This Christmas counting activity can be done with any theme; we did it in my class around Halloween with plain cups and spooky witch fingers. The key to making this work is using something novel to touch each item, encouraging one-to-one correspondence.
One to One Correspondence Counting Activity
Gather your materials. For this Christmas counting activity, you will need some Christmas-themed mini erasers, a tray, mini stockings, and candy canes. You can use real or plastic.
Fill the stocking with mini erasers. In my class right now, we are working on counting and comparing things to the number 10. Is it more or less than 10? Because we are working on that, I have filled my stockings with ten mini erasers with the same design and then a different number of a second design.
Of course, you could fill with a variety if you are working on counting and one-to-one correspondence.
After filling them up, invite some little mathematicians to come to do their thing!
Dump out the erasers and sort.
Next, grab that plastic candy cane and count, making sure to touch each eraser as you count.
With my students, I will be counting the top line, the bottom line, comparing which is more, then counting all of them together.
Then later in the week, I will pop a few trays out in our math center to let my students explore this on their own to continue working on one-to-one correspondence skills.
More Christmas Math Activities
My PreK students love using ten frame cards, and I can’t wait to show them these Christmas-themed ten frame cards. You can download all 10 of these ten frame cards for $2.99 and print these here.
Shape cards like these help to work on visual discrimination as well as shape recognition. These skills aren’t just math skills. They also help develop the skills needed for reading. You can get all nine shape cards here for $1.99 or check out the Christmas Math Bundle that includes both these printables and much more here.
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