Simple Math Activities For Preschoolers

Simple Math with Baking:

When you are in the kitchen many times children want to help.

Or, let’s say that when you are teaching and you are engaging in a cooking activity with the preschoolers in your classroom you want to incorporate some simple math activities for preschoolers.

When adding ingredients like ‘1 cup of milk’, or say ‘2 cups of sugar’, why not get the children involved with counting as you add the individual ingredients.

That’s as simple a preschool math activity as it is going to get in the preschool kitchen.

• Or even when you stir you could count the number of times that you stir around the bowl and do it slowly.
• Or how many ‘cupcakes did we make’? and count the cupcakes (slowly).
• How many eggs did we add?

Or when serving and cutting cake or pie or giving out cookies, you can count them with your little preschool helpers.

Use your imagination when looking for more simple ways to teach math when you are in the kitchen. These are just a few of many preschool counting ideas and simple math activities for preschoolers you can discover in the kitchen.

*Remember to NEVER leave Children unattended or unsupervised in the Kitchen around HOT Stoves, Burners & Glass and Sharp Utensils*

 Counting Cheerios – Simple Math Activity:

Children love cereal. One of the popular cereals because of it’s fun shape, whole grains and crunchy texture is cheerios. It’s not uncommon to see many toddlers crunching on dry cheerios.

One simple preschool math activity for using cheerios is to get a few plastic cups and label them with different numbers. (eg.) 4, 8, 10 etc..

You can label the cups with with whatever numbers you want. You can have the children then count the correct number of Cheerios out and place the correct number of Cheerios into the correct cup.

Make It Even Better:

If you want to add some new flavors, you could mix in some Fruit loops with the Cheerios. You could even substitute the Cheerios for something like raisins if your children prefer.

This simple counting activity and simple math for children is a fun way to get the kids counting. When they match up the correct number of Cheerios into the correct cup, you can give them the Cheerios as a sweet, delicious reward!

Keep thinking up new, fun ways to get children to learn with simple math ideas.

Simple Counting with Fruits (Food)

You could really use any food with this simple math idea, however, it’s good to keep the foods healthy and fruit seems to appeal to most children.

This is an easy way to try and present the kids with some simple adding and subtracting math skills using something that they like, along with basic counting.

What to Do for this Activity:

Using fruits like 3 to 4 apples or something like grapes, strawberries etc. at an activity table.

Line up the fruits in front of the kids and count each one in front of the children.

Then with the children observing-take 1 of the fruits away and then ask, ‘If I subtract or remove 1 – How many do we have left?’

You then would count the fruit again. You can change this up and add fruit or remove 2 etc.

Be sure to ask questions as you add or subtract a fruit and then count again.

Just be sure to keep the numbers low and at a reasonable level for the children. Repetition is the key here for the kids to understand.

Keep Math Interesting & Fun:

Children get bored and distracted easily. You can mix things up a little and keep it fun and exciting so that the kids stay focused.

You could now ask  “If we eat one fruit – How many do we have left?”

Then you could cut up the fruit and give every child a small piece (works best with apples or similar type of fruit). We then count how many fruits are left.

You can keep doing this with all the fruits by eating 1 each time and sharing it with the children. Then count the remaining fruits until you eventually have zero (0) fruit left.

It’s a fun way to get the children learning math and having fun. The eating helps to get the children involved and to keep them focused.