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Number Activities for Kindergarten

Number sense is one of the key concepts kindergartners need to learn before they can continue on to perform higher math skills. This means that much of a kindergarten math class is spent learning and reviewing the order of numbers, place values and number recognition. You can start kindergartners off on the right foot in math class by making the activities into games and using fun manipulatives to complete assignments.
  1. Dominoes and Dice

    • Dice and dominoes are good for creating number activities because children have to count up the dots, yet the pieces are very game-like. Do an activity where children roll dice and record their rolls on a piece of paper. Then have them count up how many times they rolled each number. For advanced children, have them add each roll to see how many they rolled all together. With dominoes, have students line up their dominoes in any configuration they like and then count how many dots are on each domino. Tailor these games to the abilities of your students.

    Color Grids

    • Simple graphs will improve students' number sense and counting ability. Give students grids with each square filled in randomly in one of three different colors. Use whatever manipulatives you have in the classroom to lay over the grid, such as poker chips or small colored blocks, and ask the students to place the chip of the same color over each square on the grid. Then they can stack all of their chips or blocks of one color together and count them up. On a piece of paper, have them draw the number of chips over the color, so the x-axis will be labeled, "red, green, blue" and the children will draw the number over each color to make a graph of their chips.

    People Graphs

    • A kinesthetic graph activity is to prepare a few questions for students to answer with numbers, for instance, how many children are in your family, how many letters are in your first name and how many pets do you have? Then designate spots in the room for certain numbers, so that standing by the board is "1," standing by the teacher's desk is "2," standing by the door is "3," etc. Label the places in the room to make this easier. Ask the children a question and have them walk to stand by the number that matches their answer. Count how many children answered the same number.

    Further Resources

    • Repetition with numbers is very important and sometimes a quick yet useful math activity is just a worksheet or a counting coloring page. You can find many such printable pages at First School's website (see Resource 1) and at Kids' Learning Station's website (see Resource 2). Tech-savvy kindergartens can use the resources at ABC Ya's Kindergarten Computers page (see Resource 3), where students can play online games to hone their number skills.

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