Number bingo helps preschool children with number recognition. Kids are very motivated to identify and mark numbers in a fast-paced bingo game. Buy a game or print a grid from the computer and customize it with the numbers your class is studying. The DLTK website has a free printable bingo grid to download. Make a set of cards that match the numbers so you can call the bingo game. Chocolate coated candy or small crackers can double as bingo markers and a snack for after the game.
Get preschoolers thinking abstractly and practicing pattern recognition with a tanagram board game. Teacher supply stores carry tanagram puzzle games. Store-bought tanagrams are flat plastic, foam or cardboard geometric shapes that preschoolers can match to printed puzzle boards to form shapes. Youngsters can challenge themselves and use a blank board to place the shapes in order to form their own creations. The Tanagrams website contains directions to make your own set of tanagrams and a page for you to download and print puzzles. Kids can take turns, work together or time each other to "race" to the completion of tanagram puzzle games.
You can create a math board game with recycled bottle caps and pieces of cardboard. Save and collect plastic bottle caps of any size until you have accumulated 100 or more. Draw numbers from zero to 100 on the caps with a permanent marker. Draw a grid on a rectangular piece of cardboard that contains squares for each number, including zero. Place the caps on the grids' corresponding number. Make a set of number cards from zero to 100 and place them in a bowl or basket. Let the children take turns choosing a card and plucking the matching number from the board. Challenge number-savvy preschoolers to group number caps they collect into sets of "ones," "tens," and "twenties"--all the way up to a group that contains only the number 100.