I love putting together simple math trays for my boys, especially since they're always such a hit with them. I mean of course they are when you have a child with hypernumeracy where math and numbers are a huge passion and special interest.
This St. Patrick's Day math activity tray was no different. My youngest son loved it. And I know my oldest, who has hypernumeracy would have loved it too!
This math tray lead to lots of counting, addition practice, stacking, sorting, and so much more for my four year old. It's really simple to set up as well!
St. Patrick's Day Math Activity Tray for Kids: What You'll Need
This math tray was designed to encourage counting, addition, exploration of tally marks, and measurement using St. Patrick's Day themed materials. Here's what we used:
- Dice - Use as many or as little as you. The dice can be of any shape or size too. You decide!
- Measuring tape (optional) - Always a fun addition!
- Shamrocks - Ours are from the dollar store
- Green transparent cocktail stirrers - Also from the dollar store
- Tray of some sort to put all the materials - We used a wooden one that has four compartments.
Simply place all of the materials onto a tray. Since we had a tray with four compartments, I put the coins in one section, the shamrocks in a second section, the cocktail stirrers in a third, and the dice and measuring tape in the final compartment. I think that this tray looked divine and inviting. Math has never looked so pretty and engaging!
A Simple Preschool & Kindergarten Math Activity for St. Patrick's Day
What I love about math activities like this are how open-ended they are. Some kids might measure using the measuring tape. Others might build things using the materials, such as tally marks or shapes. Some might roll the dice. Others might explore in totally unexpected ways! It's fun to watch how things unfold.
As for four year old K, he loved to roll the die and count out the appropriate number of materials. Sometimes he would roll a couple of dice and add the materials accordingly.
Here is an example of his counting, showing how the number four could be represented by four coins, four shamrocks, or four sticks.
I think the thing that K was most fond of was the coins. He stacked them into towers and then separated/sorted them by color (there were gold coins and green coins). You could even make this into a little game where you roll the dice and add that many more coins to the stack.
Like I mentioned before, there are lots of ways to explore mathematical concepts with these materials. It's really open-ended! You could even consider writing numbers on the shamrocks so they could match coins with the number they see on the shamrock or have them match the shamrock to whatever number they roll on the dice. So feel free to expand on this idea as you see fit.
What do you think your child would do with this St. Patrick's Day math activity tray?
