Counting Practice with Simple Math Grid Games

Christmas Math Game and Preschool Lesson Plan
Photo Source: explorations-in-learning.blogspot.com

Help your preschoolers practice counting and one-to-one correspondence with a fun grid game! Simply choose a favorite clip art image that goes along with your unit of study/lesson (or several, if you like!) and arrange them in a grid. Printing and laminating the newly created grid 'game mats', provide your preschoolers with a cup of manipulatives - you can use cereal, stickers, beads, or anything else you might think of - as well as a die and invite them to take turns; first, rolling the die and discerning the number rolled, then using the manipulatives to cover the same number of images on their game mat. The first student to cover their entire board, wins! The concept is quite simple, but is sure to keep your students occupied (and learning!) for quite a while!

With harvest and Halloween coming up, you might consider one of the following options:

  • Filling the grid with spider webs and having students use plastic/rubber spiders as counters.
  • Creating a game board full of jack-o-lanterns and setting out clean pumpkin seeds to use as manipulatives.
  • Using various Halloween clip art images to fill the grid and having students use candy corn for counters.
[NOTE: We know it's definitely not time yet, but we love the creativity of the Christmas grid game pictured above. The mini presents are awesome! We found it at Explorations and hope it inspires you as much as it inspired us!]
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