These counting activities are perfect for toddlers, preschoolers, and even kindergarteners who still need number reinforcement.
Counting can be done in natural ways, such as counting the number of flowers you see, the number of steps you take, or the number of grapes you eat. These real-life examples can be reinforced through the activities you'll find below.
Which of these number activities do you think your kids will like best?
As well as browsing all these fabulous counting activities you might want to check out our counting printables available in the Messy Little Monster Shop.
Counting Activities
Apple Theme Counting Game
Your kids are going to love our Apple Theme Counting Game. It's a fun math activity for preschoolers, and who doesn't enjoy eating chocolate when practicing their numbers? It's great for memory, counting, and number recognition. It's totally okay for Mom to sneak a piece of chocolate, too.
Apple Tree Fingerprint Counting Activity
This Apple Tree Fingerprint Counting Activity allows kids to use their fingerprints to make apples on trees while they're counting. It's a fun craft and counting activity in one!
Playdough Apple Tree Counting Activity
Yes, as you can see, we love apple activities! This Playdough Apple Counting Activity is a fun, hands-on way for kids to practice counting. They'll use dice to show the color and the number that should be added to the tree. You could also use this for big kids to help with addition or subtraction, as well as counting.
Chocolate Counting Activity
Use our Chocolate Counting Activity to encourage toddlers and preschoolers to practice counting and number recognition. If you don't want your kids to get hyped up on sugar, you could substitute berries or goldfish crackers instead.
Printable Number Playdough Mats
Does your child need lots of variety? Use our Printable Number Playdough Mats! You'll find many garden-themed playdough mats to practice counting. Included are a tree, a spiderweb, a bee, a bird's nest, a carrot garden, and more.
Painted Rock Number Activities
You'll get so much use out of these Painted Number Rocks! Use them for simple counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. We use them by gathering leaves, flowers, etc. according to the number on the rock.
Learn How to Count Ladybug Counting Activity
This free printable Ladybug Counting Activity involves a leaf and ladybird hunting activity that will get little ones excited about numbers and about getting outside. Order the numbered leaves and match them to the ladybird with the same number of spots.
Magnetic Fish Number Game
Use our Fishing Number Game along with the nursery rhyme 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 once I caught a fish alive. Kids will have so much fun catching their fish and identifying the numbers. They'll want to play it again and again.
Bird Counting Activity for Preschool
Toddlers will love making playdough eggs to count into birds' nests. You can grab our printable bird nests to make prepping this bird counting activity super easy.
Playdough Flower Counting Activity
Use colorful playdough to make flowers with this fun playdough flower counting activity. Make flower stems and centres and then count out the correct number of petals for each flower. This is a great activity for toddlers and preschoolers as it works on fine motor skills as well as counting skills.
Monster Playdough Counting Activity
This monster playdough counting activity is a lot of fun too! Help your toddler or preschooler to create monsters from playdough and other small pieces such as matchsticks and googly eyes. Have fun counting the number of eyes or arms each monster has.
Frog Counting Activity
Grab our printable frog counting activity and have fun counting frogs on and off the log or lily pad. This would be a fun counting game to play after singing the nursery rhyme 5 speckled frogs sat on a speckled log!
Hands-On Counting Activities
Roll and Count Shell Game
Gather your seashells from your latest beach trip to make a go of this Roll and Count Shell Game from The Art Kit. It's a terrific activity to do as part of an ocean theme or to practice counting in the summer.
Cheerio Bubbles Counting Activity
This Cheerio Bubbles Counting Activity by Happily Ever Mom is such a fun way to use numbered fish. It's a great activity to pair with our magnetic fishing game above. Instead of counting fish this time, you'll add cheerio bubbles next to each fish according to their numbers.
Clothespin Counting Activity
Make a simple math tray for your little one! This Clothespin Counting Activity for Preschoolers by School Time Snippets is incredibly simple and gives kids a chance to focus on fine motor skills as well. Each craft stick has a dot, and kids clip a clothespin on each dot.
Hammering Numbers Learning Activity
Kids who enjoy tinkering will love this Hammering Numbers Learning Activity from Happily Ever Mom. Find a wooden toy hammer or mallet, some golf tees, and start hammering the tees into the numbers on the cardboard. Simple and fun!
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Counting Activities
Read the story and share these If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Counting Activities by Still Playing School with your preschooler! The activity is pretty straightforward—each paper cookie has a specific number of dots (chocolate chips) to count. You may even want to try this with real chocolate chips.
Felt Counting Tree
The wonderful thing about this Felt Counting Tree from Barley and Birch is that kids can enjoy it again and again. Practice both colors and counting with the beautiful felt leaves.
Turkey Counting Activity
You don't have to wait until Thanksgiving to do this Turkey Counting Activity by From Engineer to SAHM. Perhaps you can think of them as peacocks instead outside of the month of November. Either way, kids will have a blast counting and adding feathers to the birds!
Ocean Themed Lego Worksheets
Bring out the LEGOs for these fun and engaging Ocean Themed Lego Worksheets from JDaniel4's Mom. If you don't have LEGOs, any sort of counters will do, such as buttons, beads, stickers, coins, or anything else you have handy. The packet includes 10 pages, and you may want to put them in a sheet cover to keep them clean and tidy to reuse over and over.
Math Number Game
Use small wooden blocks to make this Math Number Game from Teaching Ideas to help your kids learn how to count to 50. Kids can start at the beginning and work on their numbers in sequential order, or pop numbers into place as they find them. Either way is fun.
Jellybean Counting Activity
Jellybeans are available year-round, not just on Easter, so grab some the next time you're shopping to try this Jellybean Counting Activity by Blessed Beyond a Doubt.
One to One Correspondence Counting Activity
Use this One to One Correspondence Activity from Stay at Home Educator to teach kids foundational math skills. It's an important concept to learn in counting. Kids will place "o" shaped cereal pieces on "o" shaped stickers, such as page hole reinforcement stickers.
Ping Pong Count and Push Number Activity
Get toddlers excited about counting with this Ping Pong Count and Push Activity by Fantastic Fun and Learning. It's a hands-on way to introduce numbers 1 through 5. It also touches on number matching and number recognition as well as counting.
Marshmallow Counting Activity
Use mini marshmallows as counters! This Marshmallow Snowball Winter Counting Activity by Stay at Home Educator is perfect for those cold months when you're doing snow-themed activities. You could even whip up some homemade hot chocolate to add the marshmallows to after you're done.
Cotton Snowball Counting Activity
Speaking of winter activities, this Cotton Snowball Counting Activity from Live Over C's is another seasonally appropriate one. It's pretty simple—match the number of cotton balls to the number!
Leaf Fine Motor Counting Activity
Get outdoors to gather some leaves for Kids' Craft Room's Fine Motor Counting Activity using leaves and clothespins. This is easiest to do in the fall when leaves are on the ground, but if you have trees in your yard, feel free to pick about 10 of them off the tree to use for this activity. Mark each leaf with a number, and clip the number of clothespins to it. It's extra fun if you can find lots of different types of leaves to talk about.
Counting Beads on Pipe Cleaners
Combine fine motor development and numbers by Counting Beads on Pipe Cleaners. This activity from Laughing Kids Learn teaches kids to thread beads onto pipe cleaners (which helps hand and eye coordination) as they count the beads.
Corn Counting Activity
I Heart Craft Things' Corn Counting Activity is a fantastic math activity for fall. Use yellow circle stickers to cover up each number as you count sequentially. Isn't that easy and fun?
Pom-Pom Counting Activity
You can set up this Pom-Pom Counting Activity from Laughing Kids Learn in no time. Gather cupcake liners and any counters you have, such as pom-poms, counting bears, coins, beans, etc., to match up with the numbers in each cupcake liner.
Pin this list of fun hands-on counting activities for toddlers and preschoolers so you'll have lots of different ways to help your child with those early math skills.
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