Math Centers to Help Kids Learn

Pairing learning with activities and games is the best way to get kids to learn, and there are a lot of ways to make math centers to help kids learn numbers, number order, one to one correspondence and more.

Each of those skills could probably be its own post, but let’s delve a little deeper into some ideas for math centers for early learners.

Ten frames are a classic for learning to count and understanding numbers. It’s just a grid of five columns and two rows to start with, so you can draw one by hand or on your computer, or make one out of tape on the floor like this version from Busy Toddler. It includes an activity using a deck of cards and little toys to count out the number you see.

Similarly, this dot sticker math activity from Happy Toddler Playtime uses Uno cards and has kids peel and stick the number they see on the card. You can do this with stickers of any kind, dot markers or whatever manipulatives you have on hand, from pom poms to little erasers.

Peeling stickers is a great fine motor activity addition to the math center, and another take on that is this one from Laughing Kids Learn, where she wrote numbers in muffin liners. Kids can use tongs or tweezers to pick up pompoms to place the correct number in each liner. You could also use plastic cups for this.

And speaking of cups, any cup with a rim (these are actually Styrofoam, not plastic) can be used to make an easy number tower activity for your math center. This one is from The Activity Mom and is super simple to set up. You could actually use the same cups for different activities such as stacking the cups in order, doing odd and even numbers or placing items in the cups.

While kids are learning the numbers in order they can play with this missing number math activity from Planning Playtime. It uses supplies you probably already have — craft sticks and clothespins — and is another great fine motor skill builder at the same time it teaches math skills.

These last few are paid but they’re cute so I couldn’t help sharing. Use unit cubes to build a city with building of differing heights with this printable from Preschool Activities. Or count with plastic links with this one from The Kinderhearted Classroom. I also love the flip, make and build printable from Blocks and Beads that helps teach counting up to 10.

One of the subjects that’s often covered in preschool is learning about the five senses. Understanding our senses helps us describe the world around us and our experience in it, and it’s fun to explore the senses in different ways.

Rock Your Homeschool has a great free printables pack having to do with the five senses. I love the foldable activity shown above because it emphasizes that the way we really experience our senses is through our brains. They also have a sensory scavenger hunt printable, which doesn’t include taste but has the rest of the senses included.

Of course we don’t really want kids tasting things they find outside (unless you happen to have fruit or vegetables growing nearby) but I like the way Hands on Teaching Ideas handled it by including “something an animal would eat” on their five senses scavenger hunt.

Sea of Knowledge has lots of ideas for things to do with preschoolers to learn about the five senses, as well as this free with email signup template for making a five senses craft (you could also trace the child’s hands instead of using the hands in the template if you like).

Use a potato head toy you probably already have to play a five senses game with the download from A Little Pinch of Perfect. You could do the same thing on paper with a potato (or human body) shape and color on the different sense organs.

Simple Everyday Mom has a cute set of senses puppets you can print and play with, or use for different projects and crafts.

Preschool Packets has a whole set of posts dealing with teaching the five senses (the one linked here is for hearing but the rest are linked within that post), which includes a great idea for making shakers with kids to explore the sense of hearing.

Tim’s Printables has some cute five senses printables where kids can match the image to the sense you’d use to explore it. There’s also a body to label but I think there’s only a male version.

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