- Number Hunt in Jelly: In a nutshell – First, spread out some plastic numbers in jelly layers. When it’s all set, give out some tongs to children and show them how to pick up the numbers from the wiggly substance (and practice their fine motor skills along the way). This sensory play is a great way of sneaking in number recognition to something fun and engaging for the children.
What you need –
- Jelly
- Bowls
- Plastic numbers or card numbers will do
- Tongs or a spoon
- LEGO Patterns: In a nutshell – Good, old LEGO. Useful – in so many different ways, here it comes to the rescue yet again. Prepare some cards with colourful blocks on them and let children discover colour patterns and reproduce them with LEGO blocks. Consider leaving the colouring part to your little learners. For an extra challenge replace the colours with simple numbers.
What you need –
- Paper Cards
- Coloured Pencils
- LEGO Blocks
- Missing Numbers: In a nutshell – Write number sequences on craft sticks and remember to leave some blanks in between. Next, you write the missing numbers on a bunch of clothes pegs and give them out to your class. Now you’re ready to let the children use their fine motor skills and clip the pegs on sticks. The best thing about this inexpensive early years maths activity is that you only create the props once and they’re ready to be used as many times as you like.
What you need –
- Lolly sticks
- Pens
- Clothes Pegs
- Smack It: In a nutshell – Prepare some sticky notes with various numbers and place them in front of the children armed with fly swatters. The goal of this simple yet fun game is for the little ones to identify the number on the dice and match it with the ones written on sticky notes before smacking the correct answer with a fly swatter! This can be easily adapted for older children too!
What you need –
- Dice
- Fly Swatter or similar
- Sticky Notes
- Straws and Pom Poms: In a nutshell – Label small containers with some numbers that you’d like your learners to practice and prepare some straws and pom poms. To play this early years maths activity, the children simply put the straw on a pom-pom, suck in to try and pick it up and drop over the containers until they’ve got the right number in each one. Don’t use smaller items that will come up the straw and be dangerous!
What you need –
- Pom Poms/ ping pong balls (stay safe)
- Straws
- Join the Dots! In a nutshell – Tape some paper to the wall (outside works best) and write several numbers, each decorated with as many dots as the number. Now, children can touch each dot with a pen and see the number and the quantity all together! You can also put the paper on the floor but holding a marker up and out makes this not only an activity for early years maths but also a good way to strengthen those little arm muscles.
What you need –
- Paper and pens
- Spinning Cups: In a nutshell – It’s a great, interactive activity for introducing simple equations. You just need to write some numbers and mathematical symbols on the edges of the paper cups, and then stack them on each other in a logical order (e.g. 1 + 3 = 4). Now, show the little ones how to spin the different cups and create true equations!
What you need –
- Cups
- Pens
- Egg Cracking: In a nutshell – Create ‘eggs’ by cutting out oval shapes from cardboard and write different numbers on them. Let the children identify the numbers and crack the eggs by punching the corresponding number of holes in them using a hole punch or carefully with a pencil. This exercise can also help develop hand muscles.
What you need –
- Cardboard
- Hole Punch/something to make holes with
- Pens
- Scissors
- Musical Mathematics: The early years mathematicss activity: – Top 10 Counting Songs by Super Simple Songs – Kids Songs
In a nutshell – When children are singing they are taking in information and training the brain but they don’t think they are, they think they are just having fun. Singing is an aerobic activity that boosts oxygenation in the bloodstream, increasing mental alertness. Check out these 10 lovely number songs.
- Broken Hearts: In a nutshell – Share the love at this time…or any time! Simply cut out some hearts and cut each in half using different zigzags, squiggles and so on. Then write a number on one side and draw a corresponding number of hearts on the other. Well done, you’ve just created puzzles! Now it’s time for the little ones to find matching parts of the broken hearts. This can also be done with ‘ladybirds’.