Curriculum Area: Math (ordering)

Materials Needed: Pictures of a person at different ages (a grandparent works best).

Procedure: Have a child line up the pictures from youngest to oldest.

Variations: Use pictures of several people or pictures from magazines if needed.

Guidance Suggestions: Remind children not to discriminate against the elderly if you hear any negative comments.

Curriculum Area: Math (graph)

Materials Needed: Marker board or large paper and people

Procedure: Draw a graph on the board. Give the children a few options. Then ask them what their favorite food is by raising their hands. Put their answers in the bar graph.

Variations: Use the same results to make a pie graph for the children to fill/color in.

Guidance Suggestions: Let the children pick more than one food option if they are having trouble deciding.

Curriculum Area: Math (one-to-one correspondence counting and graphing)

Materials Needed: Wooden cube blocks and number cards

Procedure: Set out some cards with numbers 0-10 in a line. Have a child put the correct number of blocks above each card.

Variations: Use larger numbers that are out of order and paper clips for older children.

Guidance Suggestions: Sometimes kids want to work alone. Find an alternate activity for the other children in the class if this happens.

Curriculum Area: Math (money)

Materials Needed: Fake money and toy food

Procedure: Have the children play restaurant. Let them buy their food. (If you want to make menus, you can do an image search for the toy food you have. Then copy and paste it into a word document and print it).

Variations: Set up a toy store for children to buy things they want to play with.

Guidance Suggestions: The price children assign to the toys is not important.

Curriculum Area: Math (one-to-one correspondence counting)

Materials Needed: Toys and a box or shelf

Procedure: When the kids are picking up ask them to put a specific number of toys away, like 4 blocks, then 5 cars, or 3 dolls.

Variations: Have the children race the clock. Tell them they have 5 minutes to pick up everything or the clock wins.

Guidance Suggestions: Hand toys to the children that are cleaning up slowly or clean up with them. Give the children that listen well stickers or stars. When they earn five stars let them pick a special activity.

Curriculum Area: Math (colors)
Materials Needed: None

Procedure: Point to or hold something in the room. Ask the children to tell you what color it is.

Variations: For older children pick things with colors like magenta or turquoise. You could also do this activity using shapes.
Guidance Suggestions: This is a good transitional activity to do. It will help distract the children when they have to wait in line or wait for lunch.

Curriculum Area: Math (sorting)

Preparation Needed: Cut out some scrapes of colored construction paper.

Materials Needed: Construction paper and scissors

Guidance Suggestions: Have the children sort the colors.

Variations: Call out a color for the children to find.

Curriculum Area: Math (more / less)

Materials Needed: Things in the room

Procedure: Ask the children to compare the types of toys in the room; for example, are there more animals or books, are there more yellow or blue toys.

Variations: Use two books to compare letters in the title of each book. Is the letter A or E used more often.

Guidance Suggestions: Set out some toys to make this activity less confusing and easier.

Curriculum Area: Math (rote counting)
Materials Needed: Calendar

Procedure: Mark a special day on the calendar, for example the last day of school. Then have the children count down to that day.

Variations: Instead of a calendar you can make a paper chain with a number written on each link representing each day. Then cut off one link every day. This will give younger children a visual representation of how many days it will take.
Guidance Suggestions: Involve kids as much as possible. Have the children work together to make the paper chain or ask the children what number comes next on the calendar.

Curriculum Area: Math (grouping)

Materials Needed: Straws or pipe cleaners

Procedure: Show children grouping by placing four straws side by side on the table, then adding a fifth straw over them diagonally.

Variations: Use cards with tally marks to match with the straw groups.

Guidance Suggestions: This activity works better with older children. When the straws do not stay in place children may get frustrated.

Curriculum Area: Math (adding)

Materials Needed: Crayons and paper

Procedure: Ask a child to bring you 2 crayons, then 5 more and 3 after that. Say and write the number equation each time she brings more crayons.

Variations: Repeat this activity with subtraction by taking away crayons.

Guidance Suggestions: Help the child count if she is having trouble doing it alone.

Curriculum Area: Math (positions)

Materials Needed: Cards with the words “over, under, left and right” on them

Procedure: Place the cards on a table. Ask a child to put a block in the position that you call out.

Variations: Add more cards like through, behind, inside, outside, and put them around the room so everyone can play.

Guidance Suggestions: Show the children where the cards are so they can be more successful during this activity.

Curriculum Area: Math (sorting)

Materials Needed: Cut out some numbers and number words from a magazine or type some numbers (using different fonts) then print and cut them out.

Procedure: Ask children to group the numbers into piles.

Variations: Use roman numerals, tally marks and dice dots too.

Guidance Suggestions: Remind children that 4, 4, four and IIII all go into same pile.

Curriculum Area: Math (ordering)

Materials Needed: Paper, marker and scissors

Procedure: Trace around the children’s feet and your foot. Then cut out the feet. Lastly place the feet in order from smallest to largest.

Variations: Collect some rocks. Have the children put them in order from biggest to smallest.

Guidance Suggestions: Set up separate areas for tracing and cutting.

Curriculum Area: Math (pictograph)

Materials Needed: Wrapping paper, scissors, glue and paper

Procedure: Cut out some small pictures from wrapping paper. Have a child glue the pictures in columns to make a pictograph.

Variations: Draw pictures for the columns on the graph.

Guidance Suggestions: This activity works better with older children since wrapping paper rips easily.

Curriculum Area: Math (one-to-one correspondence counting)

Materials Needed: Egg carton, marker, beads or buttons

Procedure: Write numbers 1-12 in the sections of an egg carton. There should be one number in each section. Give the children some beads or buttons. Let them put the correct number of beads in each section to match the number.

Variations: For durability a muffin tin or ice cube tray could be used instead of the egg carton. You could put the names of colors in the carton or letters if you are using alphabet beads.

Guidance Suggestions: Give children the exact number of beads needed for the egg carton so they will know if they made a mistake when counting.

Curriculum Area: Math (measuring)

Materials Needed: String, scissors, paper, marker and tape

Procedure: Write each child’s name or place their picture on a piece of paper. Tape it to the wall to mark how tall they are.

Variations: Measure each child with a piece of string. Give each child their string to compare their height with other things in the room.

Guidance Suggestions: If a child is sad that he is short, remind him that everyone is unique. Then you can remind him that it is easier for short children to hide during hide and seek.

Curriculum Area: Math (counting)

Materials Needed: Paper with pictures of common objects on it and pencil

Procedure: Give children a paper with pictures of things that are around the room like a chair, chalk, car, doll, door. Have the children count the objects that are in the room. Then write the number of each object on the page.

Variations: Count books that have the word “the” in the title. Then write the number on a piece of paper.

Guidance Suggestions: You should make enough things to count so the children are not all in the same place at the same time.

Curriculum Area: Math (numeral literacy)

Materials Needed: Foam sheets (found in the craft section), permanent marker and scissors

Procedure: Use scissors to cut out 42 equal squares on foam sheets or laminated paper. Write numerals 0-20 using a permanent marker on 21 of the squares. Then write out the number word zero-twenty on the other 21 squares. One number or word should be on each square. Then have the children match the numeral to the word.

Variations: You can do this with colors/color words and shapes/shape words too.

Guidance Suggestions: For younger children start with numbers 0-10 so it is not too hard.

Curriculum Area: Math (graph)

Materials Needed: Colorful beads, graph or lined paper and glue

Procedure: Give each child some beads and paper. Have them place then glue the beads, by color, in rows to make a graph.

Variations: This can also be done in small groups.

Guidance Suggestions: Giving each child only two colors of beads makes a better graph.

Curriculum Area: Math (one to one correspondence counting)

Materials Needed: Napkins, marker and crackers or small food

Procedure: Draw a grid of 4 to 9 squares on each child’s napkin. During snack time give children enough crackers to fill up their grid. (One cracker for each square).

Variations: Have the children make place mats, on the back make the grid. Laminate for future use.

Guidance Suggestions: Let the children get their own food and eat family style if possible.

Curriculum Area: Math (shapes)

Materials Needed: Pipe Cleaners

Procedure: Have the children bend the pipe cleaners to make shapes.

Variations: This can be done with numbers as well.

Guidance Suggestions: You may need to help children bend the corners.

Curriculum Area: Math (pattern)

Materials Needed: None

Procedure: Do some body movements in a pattern; for example step, step, jump, step, step, jump. Have the children copy your pattern.

Variations: Eat your lunch in a pattern; like grape, drink, rice, grape, drink, rice.

Guidance Suggestions: For more room do this activity outside.

Curriculum Area: Math (sorting)

Materials Needed: A variety of seashells

Procedure: Have children sort the shells into groups based on size or shape.

Variations: Sort some buttons by size, color, or the number of holes they have.

Guidance Suggestions: Remind children that shells can break.

Curriculum Area: Math (subtraction)

Materials Needed: Plate, baby carrots or other healthy small food like peanuts, Cheerios or crackers

Procedure: Give each child the same number of food. Ask them before they begin eating how many carrots they have on their plate. During and after the snack ask them how many they have left. Then write the equations on the marker board after the snack is over.

Variations: The children can count their carrots and crackers together for an addition equation.

Guidance Suggestions: Make sure everyone is at the table with their hands washed before starting.

Curriculum Area: Math (one-to-one correspondence counting and colors)

Materials Needed: Shoelace or pipe cleaners and colorful beads

Procedure: Write a chart on a marker board saying string 5 red, 3 yellow, and 4 blue beads on their string.

Variations: You can make the list longer or take out the color words for children of different ages.

Guidance Suggestions: Use pipe cleaners for children that have trouble stringing beads.