Preschool Homemade Math Games

There is math all around us!

How many stop lights did it take for you to get to work today? How many doors are inside your house? What is the amount of all of your students’ ages together? How many of your students have brown, green, or blue eyes? The chances of practicing math and the different ways of counting are endless.

As a preschool teacher, you know this fact, and helping your children realize that math is everywhere is your goal. Helping them to make preschool math games that they take home to play alone or together with their class will prove to be priceless. You can teach them that the opportunity to count objects to practice their math skills is a smart thing to do.

Teach preschoolers that those who are great at math are those who practice it as much as possible. Help them realize that learning math can actually be fun, and they will see that they can create homemade math games that will help them learn a skill that is vitally important to their education.

• Math Flash Cards - Materials: Collect two sets of three-by-five index cards and large markers. Instructions: Draw the numbers 0 through 10 on a set of cards for each student. Game: Hold up a card and have the students call out the number to you. Allow the children to take their own set of cards home.

• My Ten Fingers Activity - Materials: Collect construction paper, scissors, and markers. Instructions: Trace the hands of each child on the paper. Trace their hands in an oversize manner or make sure the markings around their fingers are a lot larger than they actually are. Write the numbers one through ten on each finger. Game: Let the children count one through ten using their finger drawings.

• Old MacDonald Had a Farm - Sing the song "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" with your children while giving them a visual for addition and subtraction. Provide pictures of the farm animals with sticky tape or Velcro on the back. Have the students add and subtract the animals while they sing the song. So, if Old MacDonald had 5 animals and the duck came along to sing the song, then Old MacDonald had 6 animals.

• Counting Circles - Materials: You will need sidewalk chalk. Instructions: You and the children must go outside to play this game. Draw large circles on the sidewalk. Have the children hop from circle to circle counting to ten. This can be modified by using hoola-hoops in the gymnasium on a day with inclement weather.

Source: author’s own experience.