Number Activities for kids : Number Tunnel

We have been doing some playful learning activities with my 3 year old – we have created an alphabet city, played with letters in a cornmeal sensory bin, had fun with alphabet memory game, picked number leaves in a sensory bin, sang with play dough number fingers. {Access our ABC’s of Math Activities} full series here. We love doing math activities and number activities for kids. I have personally seen the enjoyment in the kid’s eyes when they are busy with hands on activities, especially hands on learning activities.

For this simple number activity I needed just a few supplies

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Foam Numbers

Color Dot Dominoes

Large Round Wood Beads

Pipe Cleaners

Styrofoam Sheet

Toy Cars

We gathered our large foam numbers along with dominoes, beads and pipe cleaners. I set up the activity on a large Styrofoam sheet which came along with one of our appliances.

Before I introduced the number activities I had in mind, I let the kids explore the materials. They seem to be more receptive for a little bit structure when they are given an opportunity to explore and examine the materials first.

I was excited to see my 3 year count the dots on the dominoes and start to examine and feel the foam numbers. I had quite a few number activities for kids in mind, but those had to wait!

Both the children enjoy building activities. They were very focussed on manipulating the foam numbers and tried attaching several numbers to each other and thus creating many designs! A great lesson on spatial thinking and some what of a math activity

I simple adore this “number butterfly my 5 year old made.

I actually set out this invitation for more than a day. The following day my 3 year old was eager to arrange the numbers in order and **invited me** to help her learn her numbers. Isn’t that best kind of invitation to play and learn? Now that the child was more receptive for intentional learning, I suggested a few number activities- starting with ordering the numbers.

Then we counted the dots on the dominoes and tried our best to match them to the foam numbers. Hands on way to learn one-one correspondence.

It was time practice and develop those fine motor skills by poking pipe cleaners in Styrofoam ( yay! for poking ) and beading .

This was the challenging part. I helped her take a look at the large foam numbers and count those many beads and thread them on to the pipe cleaners.

tada! Fun number activities for kids all done! Now comes the best part in these number activities. My kid bent the pipe cleansers from the foam side and to the dominoes side matching them while creating a colorful tunnel.