Kindergarten Number Activities

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Include lots of time for children to play and explore sets of numbers when planning kindergarten number activities. Although children may be able to count to 5, they may not know what "5" means.

Students need to have many experiences playing with five objects to build up an intuitive understanding of the number five.

The term,"operations", refers to what you can do with the numbers - add them, subtract them, divide them, etc.

"Number sense" means that the child has an intuitive understanding of numbers. Some children enter kindergarten with an excellent number sense to the number 5. Another student's number sense is at a higher or lower level.

As an adult, I can visualize five dots on a dice, sets of five in groups to make 100 or combinations of numbers to equal five. Children have to "play" with objects and participate in structured kindergarten number activities to be able to do this. Some adults who struggle with math were not given enough opportunities or time as children to explore math with objects.

number activities Not all children who come to kindergarten counting to 5 or 10 or more have a good understanding of what the numbers mean. They are also unsure of how to sequence sets of numbers.

Don't get to eager to have your students filling in worksheets. Review the steps in "Teaching with manipulatives" and give the kids enough time to participate in kindergarten number activities with real things. Repeated building of sets of the same number benefits the students.

So how do we teach kindergarten number activities?

Use math materials for all activities
Encourage the students to talk about what they are doing
Model excitement as you demonstrate the activities
Make a big deal of their thinking - Wow, how did you do that?
Use your imagination to create activities- what do you have in the classroom?

TEACHER TIPS
Using mats defines each child's space. Even though you can have a mountain of pattern blocks or other materials in the middle of the carpet, some children will not relax and learn until they have their own pile. Don't fight it, give them a pile.

Demonstrate all games and kindergarten number activities slowly. Children are easily distracted and may not notice that you touch each item when you count. Model the behaviors you want the children to imitate and they soon will.

Ideas for teaching kindergarten number and counting activities

Throughout the day provide activities in which children
count objects:

Count name tags to see how many girls are absent,
how many boys, how many are present etc.
Count the boys, then the girls, how many all together
Count how many words are in each line of the pocket chart
Count pencils, scissors, glue sticks as you pass them out
Say counting rhymes and finger plays

Include five minute math activities:

Estimate, then count how many items are in a jar
Measure things with blocks, then count how many blocks
Count items in stories
Count pencils, scissors, glue sticks as you pass them out
Match objects with the number of students - how do we know we have enough pencils?

Incorporate number and counting activities into themes,
music, and arts and crafts:

Instead of preparing all of a craft project before hand, have the children do the work. For example, give each child a paper plate and have the craft supplies in separate bowls on the table.

Say, "Put 5 pom poms on your paper plate, now put 5 popsicle sticks, 5 stars, etc. Glue the sets of 5 items on your paper to make a Spring (or whatever) picture."

Integrate number and operation experiences into step-by-step drawings. Use large paper and felts.

E.g. number 6 - draw a circle as big as your paper, this is your pizza, now draw 6 pieces of cheese on the pizza, draw 6 tomato slices on the pizza, 6 chunks of pineapple etc.
Draw 2 red apples on one tree, 3 green on the other, how many apples all together?

Kindergarten number activities to help children
recognize numerals 0 - 9:

Play card games
Go on a classroom "3" hunt (or any number), find the number 3 and stand beside it
Cut numerals out of grocery ads
Have a special day... "Number 5 Day" - paint big fives, make cooky fives etc.
Play board games with older buddies, teach the older students to count slowly and touch the numbers as they say them

There are also many opportunities to increase the children's number sense as they participate in pattern and sorting activities.

More number ideas...

Kindergarten Number Games:
     Train Game
     Five of Each
     Ready, Set, Go
     Bear Hike
What number skills do children need to know?
      Number and Counting
      Whole number operations (adding, subtracting.etc.)
      Fractions

All math pages:

Teaching kindergarten & preschool math - how to teach kindergarten and preschool math concepts, sample step-by-step teach measurement, activities and games
Teaching with math manipulatives - how to teach with math manipulatives to help children understand math concepts
Best math manipulatives - choose materials that are useful for more than one math concept, work well for problem solving activities and are tough enough to withstand constant play
Teaching math vocabulary - learn how to teach math vocabulary and specific words as you demonstrate math activities and talk to your students about their math experiences.
Attribute blocks - how to use these math manipulatives for different features: shape, color, size and thickness to help promote logical thinking
Graphing 1 - how to teach graphing to preschool and kindergarten children, includes collecting data and organizing it in a variety of ways
Graphing 2 - more graphing ideas for young children
Measurement - how to find measurement to young children, find opportunities for students to order objects by size, color, shape...
Number Activities - how to provide experiences that build number sense
Number Games - how to improve children's number sense with easy games
Number Skills - what number skills do children need to know?
Pattern 1- how to teach children pattern concepts
Pattern 2 - ideas and games to teach children to recognize, create, copy and extend patterns
Pattern 3 - teach patterning skills to early childhood and preschool students
Sorting and classifying- how to teach children the important skills of sorting, comparing and classifying objects

Math & Literature Connections - how to combine math and literature, learn how to promote math skills as you share good literature
            Ten Apples Up on Top - open-ended math activity with Dr. Suess
            10 Little Rubber Ducks - ideas to promote math with this wonderful Eric Carle story
            1, 2, 3 to the Zoo - another great Eric Carle book, practice counting, making number sets, ordinal numbers and more