# ABCs of Math Activities: A-E > The first installment of an A-to-Z series of hands-on math ideas for toddlers to kindergartners: spotting shapes in fine art, math picture books, counting games, dominoes and egg carton math. Many ideas come from fellow bloggers, and many can be adapted for school-age kids. - URL: https://www.funlittles.com/abcs-of-math-activities-a-e/ - Ages: 2–6 yrs · Difficulty: easy · Mess: low - Time: prep none, activity varies - Works for: one-on-one, small group, whole class - Skills: counting, number-recognition, one-to-one-correspondence, addition, subtraction, shapes, patterns, matching, art-appreciation - Cautions: food-dye, ingestion-risk ## Safety - Several ideas use small items such as glass gems, coins, beans, pom poms, buttons and candy. These are choking hazards for toddlers, so supervise closely and keep them away from children who still mouth objects. - Balloons and broken balloon pieces are a choking and suffocation hazard. An adult should inflate them, supervise play and pick up any pieces right away. Check for latex allergies. - An adult should help or supervise with scissors when cutting shapes for the art activity. - The candy counting idea uses colored candy. Check for food allergies and dyes before handing it out. ## Ideas - **A is for Art: Shapes in a Masterpiece**: Inspired by the book Look! Look! Look!, we outlined the shapes in Da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine, cut the same shapes from colored paper and pieced them together into our own picture. - **B is for Books**: Introduce counting, addition, subtraction, shapes, patterns, fractions and ordinal numbers with picture books. Try One More Bunny, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, The Doorbell Rang, 365 Penguins, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Look! Look! Look!, Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 and The First Day of Winter. - **Balloon and Static Counting**: Use balloons and static electricity to practice counting. It's a math and science activity in one. - **Glass Gem Apple Addition**: Match glass gems to numbered apple cut-outs for one-to-one correspondence, then extend it to simple addition. - **Coins and Jars Counting**: Count coins into numbered glass jars, then extend the activity to learn about money. - **1-2-3 Counting Sensory Bin**: Beans, numbered cups and a good book make a sensory bin for counting practice. - **Counting and Sorting Bugs**: Adorable bug card printables and plastic creepy crawlies make counting and sorting fun. - **Number Cups**: An ingenious idea: use cups to explore numbers and counting, plus a couple more simple ideas. - **Bears, Pom Poms and Number Cards**: Counting bears, pom poms and homemade number cards for exploring numbers and much more. - **Dice and Blocks Counting**: Dice and blocks teach one-to-one correspondence and make counting fun. - **Hungry Caterpillar Felt Food Counting**: Felt food pieces to button and thread go with The Very Hungry Caterpillar to make counting interesting. - **Christmas Candy Counting**: Count candies onto paper gingerbread men and snowmen for a super sweet counting exercise. - **D is for Dominoes**: Count the dots, pair dominoes with number cards, match look-alike tiles, build shapes with the tiles, or guess dot patterns without counting. - **Domino Addition Worksheets**: Use an addition worksheet printable and add or subtract the dots on the dominoes. - **Domino Math Matching Printable**: Kids match the figure on the worksheet with a domino, place it on top and continue the math operation. - **Domino Parking Lot**: Dominoes 'park themselves' in spots labeled with the matching number, combining addition and matching. - **E is for Egg Carton Math**: Write numbers in the egg slots, shake a pom pom inside, then match, trace or count the number it lands on, or shake twice and add or subtract. - **Egg Carton Measuring and Patterns**: Use egg cartons to measure, make patterns, explore counting and spot missing numbers. - **Egg Carton Race to the Finish**: An egg carton math game where a race-to-the-finish element really kicks it up a notch. - **Lego and Egg Carton Maths**: Legos and egg cartons teach many number concepts, from toddlers to school age. - **Egg Carton Number Toss**: Cut up an egg carton to make a number toss game for number recognition, addition and more. ## Tips - With a piece of art there is focus. It made spotting shapes fun and exciting for my preschooler, and it turned into a game of its own. - Kids learn better and faster when you simply have a casual conversation about a concept while reading a picture book together. - For quick hands-on math games, dominoes never fail us. They come with a built-in counting activity. - Egg carton games are very easy to make. Write numbers in each egg slot, put a pom pom or tiny soft ball inside, close it and start shaking. - Older kids can try guessing the number of dots on a domino without counting. Younger ones benefit from the counting practice. ## FAQ **Do you have activities for school-age children?** The post says that, with a few changes, many of these activities work for school-age children. For example, older kids can guess the number of dots on a domino without counting. Later installments (F-J through U-Z) add more ideas. ## The original post by TurkeyMom (2013) This post and the next few will have several hands on math activities you can do with your kids (toddler to kindergarten age) Althought mostly preschool math will ve covered, with a few changes, you can use many of these activities for school age children as well. Please read the introductory post here for this [**ABC series of Math Activities.**](https://www.funlittles.com/math-activities-2/) ### A is for Art Gotcha! You thought I'll say "A is for addition". Yes addition is great but if you spot math in fine art, you would be drawn in too. We have many addition activities covered through the series. I remember as a kid when I asked "Why should I learn math?" the one answer I ALWAYS received was " Math is everywhere". Here we came up with a really fun way to explore art and math together. [Look! Look! Look!](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0761452826/?tag=blmemo-20) is an excellent art-appreciation book for budding artists and art enthusiasts. 3 mice observe and analyze a post card painting of an art piece recognizing , colors, shapes, patterns and lines. Eventually they make their own art using their patterns. Drawing inspiration from the book, we observed a renaissance art work by Leonardo Da Vinci and identified shapes, patterns and lines. Go and check out the book: great for fine art enthusiasts. We chose Lady with an ermine image and started identifying patters and shapes. Big A and I outlined the shapes we could spot on the image and cut out those shapes from colored sheets. After we cut out the same outlined shapes from the art work, we used the picture as a reference and pieced the cut-outs together to form our picture. This math activity is very similar to having the child point out different shapes in a room. With a piece of art, there is focus and made it fun and exciting for my pre schooler to spot shapes. It took a form of its own and turned into a game. ### B is for Books At a young age, picture books are a great way to introduce mathematical concepts to the kids. The kids were introduced to addition, counting, geometry etc only through picture books. I have personally seen that kids learn better and faster when you are simply having a casual conversation about the concept. My preschooler is very verbal and this kind of "talk about it while reading a book" approach has worked very well with her while introducing new concepts. Below I have a list of books which explores many mathematical concepts. One More Bunny Pete the Cat- 4 Groovy buttons The Doorbell Rang 365 Penguins - Number Bonds Subtraction Multiplication Division - Addition Backwards counting Fractions - Number recognition Number Recognition The Hungry Caterpillar Look!Look!Look! Chicka 123 The First day of Winter - Counting Shapes and patterns Number Recognition Ordinal Numbers ### ### C is for Counting Counting is one of the first exposure to math for kids. There are numerous hands on ways to make counting with kids interesting for them. We have done a few math counting activities in the past. We used balloons and "static" to practice counting. [](https://www.funlittles.com/math-and-science-activity/) We used glass gems and apples to practice some one-to-one correspondence and extended to practice addition. [](https://www.funlittles.com/addition-activity-for-preschoolers/) ### For additional inspiration we have more counting activities from your favorite bloggers. All these bloggers have used every day materials to create an exciting counting activity for their kids ### ### 1 2 3 4 [](http://www.teachpreschool.org/2011/05/counting-and-sorting-bugs-in-preschool/) ### ### 5 6 7 8 [](http://www.mamapeapod.com/2012/08/very-hungry-caterpillar-button-threading-game-time-for-mama.html) ### 1 . Good Long road used coins and glass jars to teach counting and cleverly extending the activity to teach her son about money. 2. Connecting Family and Seoul used beans, cups and a good book to create a sensory bin for practicing counting. 3. Teach Preschool used adorable bug cards printable and fun creepy crawlies to entice kids to have fun with counting. 4. This ingenious idea from In Lieu of preschool is a must-do for all kids. Use cups to explore numbers and couple of more ideas. 5. Learn with play at home used bears, pom poms and home-made number cards to explore numbers and much more. 6. Hands on as we grow used dice and blocks to understand one-to-one correspondence and made counting fun for her son. 7. This uber-clever and cute idea comes from Mama Pea Pod. She used felt food to go with The Hungry Caterpillar Book to make counting interesting. 8. Love Play and learn turned counting into a super sweet exercise with this activity. ### D is for Dominoes For some quick hands on math games, dominoes never fail us. With an in-build counting activity, it is very simple to expand, extend and turn a game of dominoes into a hands on math activity for the kids. ### Counting - Simply use them for counting the number of dots : Great for toddlers. - Once counting is done, use a number card and create a one-to-one correspondence activity. ### Math Operations - Use them for addition/subtraction. Use a printable like [this](http://www.math-salamanders.com/addition-math-worksheets.html) and add/subtract the dots ### Matching - By using this printable,kids can match the figure on the worksheet with a domino and place them on top and continue the math operation. - Also, matching similar looking tiles while counting the dots is also good practice. ### Combine matching and addition - Create a parking lot where the dominoes can "park themselves". Kids can find the dominoes that match with the numbers on the parking spots. This combines addition again with matching ### Shapes - Use the tiles to create geometric shapes ### Patterns - Identifying the dot patterns and guessing the number of dots without counting ( for older kids) Younger ones would benefit from counting practice. ### E is for Egg Carton Math Egg cartons are so versatile. They lend themselves for art projects, crafts, experiments, fine motor play and even for math activities. You just get creative with the cartons and can make up your game or activity to create a math game for your kids. We used egg cartons to create a memory and addition game. Check out letter G for that one. Generally egg carton games are very easy to make. Write numbers in each egg slot and place a pom pom or a tiny soft ball inside the carton and start shaking. Pom pom lands inside a number. From that point on the game can take many directions based on the age of the child 1. Simply match that number in a numbers sheet 2. Trace that number 3. Match that number to dots or any other manipulative 4. Shake up twice and perform math operations : addition, subtraction and many more. In the mean time if you need inspiration check out these amazing egg carton math ideas from around the internet. - Use egg cartons to measure, make patterns, explore counting and spotting missing numbers. - [Race to the finish element really kicks this one up a notch.](http://primarylearninglogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/egg-carton-math.html) - [Don't miss this post where legos and egg cartons are used to learn many numerical concepts.](http://www.learnwithplayathome.com/2012/10/egg-carton-maths-toddlers-to-school-age.html) - Cut up the egg carton and make a number toss game. Great for number recognition, addition and more. [Click here for the second installment : F-J](https://www.funlittles.com/abcs-of-math-activities-f-j/) [Click here for the third installment : K-O](https://www.funlittles.com/abcs-of-math-activities-k-o/) [Click here for the fourth installment :P-T](https://www.funlittles.com/abcs-of-math-activities-p-t/) [Click here for the final installment : U-Z](https://www.funlittles.com/abcs-of-math-activities-u-z/) ### Thanks for reading ### Please take a moment to comment Thanks for stopping by our little space here. We encourage you to stick around and take a look at [**couple of**](https://www.funlittles.com/paint-with-spaghetti-brooms/) our [**popular posts.**](https://www.funlittles.com/animal-resist-painting/) --- --- ### This post is a part of a ABC series brought to you by 70+ bloggers and hosted at "[This Reading Mama](https://thisreadingmama.com/the-abcs-of-a-kid-blogger-network-series/)". Check out her blog and thanks for the amazing work she has put into organizing this event. Kudos to her! Look at all the topics other bloggers have covered SCHOOL ACTIVITIES: - **A Waldorf Mama** from Triple T Mum - **After School Activities** from The Educators Spin On It - **Hands-on History** from Adventures in Mommydom - **Home Daycare or Family Child Card** from My Buddies and I - **Homeschooling** from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - **How to Home School** from In Lieu of Preschool - **[Math Activities](https://www.funlittles.com/category/abc-series/)** from Blog Me Mom - **[Montessori](http://livingmontessorinow.com/abcs-of-montessori/)** from Living Montessori Now - **Science Activities & Play** from Science Sparks - **Teaching Math** from Montessori Tidbits - **[Thrifty Teaching Tools](http://kindergartenbasics.blogspot.com/search/label/ABCs%20Series)** from Kindergarten & Preschool for Parents & Teachers