Making The Holidays Count with Counting Games for Little Learners

Looking for fun ways to make the holiday season count in your homeschool? Look no further than finding fun ways to make counting games a part of your every day this month and throughout the year.

Teach counting using everyday items

The best way to teach counting is to use items that the child is naturally interested in, like crayons, mini erasers, and manipulatives they love like counters and toys.

When you introduce counting, it might be overwhelming for your little learners, but starting from a good base point like telling them to count how many crayons they have is a great way to start. It’s like starting a conversation and having them respond to questions like ‘how many?’ and ‘how many more?’ A large part of numeracy is language so that’s the first hurdle to overcome. 

The more you prepare your learners in the beginning to get used to responding to questions like these, the better at counting and numeracy skills they will be. 

Point out numbers in daily life

Be sure to include numbers you see in everyday conversations. For example, a great way to start preschool or toddlers to recognize numbers is to point at numbers they see around them at the store, at home, on the fridge, etc. 

This again, will not be explicit instruction on numeracy, but rather a preparatory task and in essence, it will be a way to begin to tickle their interest and curiosity all about numbers. 

Introduce numbers using play

Kids respond to play in tremendous ways. Toddlers love to pretend play, so why not include some easy grocery store pretend play items and have them identify the numbers on the items and the checkout machine? 

This is a great way to spark their curiosity all about counting. Have them count the items on each card to give them to ‘customers’. 

If you’re slowly introducing counting to preschoolers, begin by counting items to ten, then slowly move upwards when they’re ready. 

You will know when they are ready. They usually show interest in counting further out from ten, they will also ask about ‘more’ items. 

And if you are working on letters, you can connect numbers to letters easily. Check out these Alphabet Letter Puzzles to learn more.

Play roll and count games

Looking for a fun way to reinforce subitizing and counting skills?

I love adding winter-themed counting printables to our seasonal homeschooling activities.

Use these cards to help kids develop subitizing and fine motor skills and their number knowledge. Kids need to master their counting and number identification skills as it is a critical component to prepare them for more complex reasoning and mathematic skills. Introduce the number dice and show the students how to use a die to count and complete their work, will be a great start!

You can alternatively use dot markers to add their dots on the mats using the black and white cards. You could possibly have your pre-schoolers work on easier numbers by counting 1 to 5 and cut out that section only. A great way to work on these cards is to create a competition with whoever has the most on their mats wins.

This game can also be played as a group, It’ll be even more enjoyable to have the competition game played between groups.

Christmas or winter themed activities are always so much fun for kids. Why is there an advantage to creating a fun learning environment for kids?

There are so many benefits but the most important ones are the obvious: kids will learn while they play.

If you master this, they will forever have a love of learning, you wouldn’t need to struggle to teach them.

Use the holidays or themes around the year to provoke a sense of curiosity and learning fun with your kids! The best part about this is that kids will naturally ask questions about the holiday season and then you can build more vocabulary, and as a result have so many natural teachable moments.

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