Building a solid number sense foundation is critical for students’ long-term math success and it starts at an early age. It is important for our students to develop a deep understanding of individual numbers, their quantities, and how they relate to other numbers. Number sense is developed through lots of practice and exposure, which is why it's important for us to have a variety of activities to help our students strengthen their skills.

Kindergarteners need a lot of practice counting, writing, manipulating, and thinking about numbers. The good news is, counting activities for kindergarten are a lot of fun!

Counting Activities

When it comes to counting and number activities, it is important to give students opportunities to use different manipulatives, materials, and styles of activities. From sorting, building, matching, and playing games, students will love learning more about numbers. These are a few activities that we are been using in small groups.

Clip The Number

Add these clip cards to your photo storage boxes for a quick grab n' go center. Perfect for your students that are working on counting, number recognition, and one-to-one correspondence. Clip cards are also an excellent way to let little ones work on their fine motor skills.

Number Puzzles

 Number puzzles are a great way for students to use their creative minds to piece together a puzzle while also practicing their counting and number sequencing by making sure the numbers at the bottom of the artwork are in order. Great for a math center or station. Just print, laminate, and cut into strips for students to use. 

Domino Match

Dominos are another great manipulative to use with kindergarten. This activity requires a deck of number cards (remove face cards) and a supply of dominos. First, students flip over a number card. Then they find a domino that has that same number of dots and matches them up.

Ten-Frame Fill 

Ten-frames are the ultimate way to practice number sense. Students identify the number and fill in ten frames with the proper number of counters. There are so many fun things you can use as counters, such as lego cubes, counting bears, bottle caps, colored marbles, cotton balls, shells, mini erasers, etc. 

Count and Stack

Kids love building and stacking so why not add in some counting fun? These Count and Stack math mats provide tons of hands-on counting practice! The numbers on the mats are shown in random order to strengthen number recognition skills to 10 and one-to-one correspondence. Unifix cubes work great for building the number towers. They hold together well and make it easy to extend learning by comparing the towers! You can also use mini erasers to represent the number. There are so many options. 

Click HERE to grab the mats.

I hope these counting activities will inspire the mathematicians in your classroom. Rotate these activities into your independent stations, math centers, or early finisher activities.  You can adapt each activity with different numbers and materials to meet the needs of your students.

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