Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s ~ Roll and Fill a Counting Game

Since Juliette has been little she has loved putting popsicle sticks into an empty container and then dumping it out.  We keep the container filled with popsicle sticks in the cabinet where she can reach it and she takes it out to play with them often.  One day, when Emily wanted to use the popsicle sticks with her and I didn’t have an extra empty container for her to use by herself I decided to turn this fun fine motor activity into a new math game that the girls could play together. 

You will need:

• An equal number of popsicle sticks for each player  (We have a huge amount of Colored Wood Craft Sticks so I gave each of us 25 of a different color)   
• A Number Die  (We have these Large Foam Dot Dice that the girls love to use)
• An empty container that will fit the popsicle sticks (We use an empty creamer container with the wrapper removed)

To Play:

The first player rolls the die to see how many popsicle sticks they will put into the container.  Juliette counted the dots to see what number she got.

Place the number of popsicle sticks into the container, one at a time.  As Juliette put each one in she counted to make sure she was putting the correct number in.

Then it is the next players turn.

We play until each person put all of their popsicle sticks into the container, and then begin again!

This game is a great way to practice counting, number recognition,  1:1 correspondence and work on fine motor skills in a fun way.  As we were playing Juliette began to recognize the amount of dots on the die and was able to just tell us the number without counting.

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.