Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s ~ Count and Fill Grid Game

The girls get very excited to try out new activities, especially when they involve their favorite candies! 

When Emily was little we did a Candy Corn Math game that was similar to this, I just changed it up a little bit to play with both girls.  This activity is great for teaching counting and 1 to 1 correspondence as well as practicing fine motor skills.   

To play, we used our mini muffin tin and one of our large foam dice, then we each got a cup of M&M’s.

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We took turns rolling the dice and then matching the M&M’s to the dots on the dice.  This really helped Juliette (2.5 years) practice counting and to see how many she needed.  For Emily (almost 5 years old) this was great practice in recognizing the amounts shown on the dice, she would say how many she needed and then get them.

  

Finally, she placed one M&M in each spot in the mini-muffin tin and then the next person took their turn until we filled up the whole tray.

While working together to fill up the tray we did a lot of counting.  The girls were excited when we finished and Emily thought it would be a good idea to count each color of M&M’s to see which color we had the most of.  This was a great opportunity to extend this for Emily and talk about comparing amounts. 

This game can be changed to fit any theme that you are working with, instead of candy you can use mini erasers, buttons, coins, pom poms or any other small items.  You can also use ice cube trays or printed grids instead of the mini muffin tin.  The PreKinders site has a lot of printable grids available for many different themes.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.