Kindergarten Math Activities

Math Activities for the kindergarten

All teachers and carers of kindergarten kids want to make their learning process fun! We want to encourage them, excite them and most of all help them to embrace math confidently as a natural part of their world. All the ideas for kindergarten math activities on this page will hopefully inspire you and the kids to have fun with math!

For more Math activities and teaching ideas go to Pre-school Math Activities

Kindergarten Math Activities - Mystery Socks

This is one of my favourite kindergarten math activities because it can be used in your small group time or as a table top task where children can work with a partner.

Start by attracting their interest. First put something familiar into the sock without them seeing what it is, Then invite a child to feel the sock and have a guess at what might be inside. Perhaps a toy car would be a good object to begin with . When they are familiar with the procedure and have all had a go you can move on to putting several things into the sock. This time they have to count the objects inside and tell you how many they think are there.

Once they have guessed you can tip the objects out and all have a go at counting them to see if the guess was right!

I have also uses this activity for shape recognition. Instead of objects I have put a 2D or a 3D shape into the sock and asked the children to identify the shape by touch alone.

Number Hunt

One of the best kindergarten math activities because you can do it inside or out ,with the whole class or just with a small group. It's also easy to set up and requires very little equipment.

I used: Plastic or sponge numbers 1-9 or 1-5 if they are only at that stage,

A whiteboard

A whiteboard pen.

Once you have organised the equipment, tell the kids that they must WALK round the classroom looking for numbers that have been hidden there. When they find one they write it down on their whiteboard. They must only have one of each number. When they have checked they have all 9 numbers they can write them down in the right order on their whiteboard. If you have a math buddy system in your class you can ask them to do a buddy check with their answers.

Make It

This is one of many open ended kindergarten math activities that you can use to assess how much they know in relation to the properties of 3d shapes by asking questions while they build.

All you need to give the kids is a box of bricks.

Depending how much input you want to give, you can:

a] Ask them to build something specific such as a garage to house 2 cars or a tower which is 10 bricks high.

b ] You can just leave them to experiment with the building bricks and when they have finished ask them to tell you about it.

If you decide on the first option. While they are building you could say to them 'Which bricks would you use for the walls of your garage?' Why wouldn't this brick [show a cone] be very good?' or 'Where could you use the cone on your garage?' or 'What shape brick could we use fpr the top of our tower?'

If the second option is used ,questions such as ' Have you tried putting 2 cars into your garage yet ? Which cars are you going to use? ' Do you think the door is going to be wide enough to get the blue car through.?' There are lots of things you can ask them which makes them think about their design in a self critical way thus improving the end product.

So many tasks we ask children to do are closed tasks. They have a right or a wrong answer. We need to encourage our children to be more self critical and decide for themselves whether it is right or not. We have , over the last decade , taken away the autonomy of our children so they no longer take responsibility for what they do and rely on others to give them the answers.

Anyway, enough of that ! Onto another kindergarten math activity!

Drinking Straw Necklaces

I was surprised when I did this activity with the kids that the boys were as keen as the girls to try!

So it became one of our favourite kindergarten math activities.

It introduces the idea of pattern, reinforces their knowledge of colour as well as including vocabulary such as longer, shorter thicker or thinner.

What you will need:

Some coloured drinking straws cut into pieces.
Some lengths of wool or yarn
A plastic embroidery needle
Scissors
Buttons

What you do:

Have your straws and buttons in a couple of small trays and cut a piece of wool or yarn long enough to fit around the child's neck.

Thread the wool onto the needle and tie a large knot at the end kept in place by a button. This will make it easier for the children to thread things onto their necklace without everything coming off while they are threading !

Next the children can start to make their necklace putting straws and buttons on in any pattern they chose.