Christmas Maths Activities for Kindergarten
These Christmas math activities for kindergarten and preschool will keep your children engaged and learning in all the excitement of your end of year celebrations.
No doubt your children are very excited about Christmas and keeping them focused and learning can sometimes be a challenge.
No need to worry this year (and every year in the future) because I have some Christmas themed math activities to keep your kids on task and learning right up until the Christmas holidays.
Christmas Math Investigation Areas
These Christmas themed math investigation areas are easy to prep and easy to set up. They will have your children developing and consolidating their early years math skills through some engaging hands-on activities.
If you would like to grab all 7 of my hands-on Christmas math activities and not worry about spending time planning and designing the printable Christmas resources, CLICK HERE to get them from my website store or HERE to purchase them on TpT.
Christmas Tree Counting
Young children benefit from hands-on learning and these fun Christmas tree counting activities will help your children consolidate their counting skills and develop their fine motor skills too.
They would be perfect for math investigation areas, math centers or as early finisher activities. They can be changed up regularly for differentiation and to keep your children interested.
So easy to set up. Just place a basket of hanging decorations next to a small Christmas tree and add a prompt and some recording sheets.
For this counting activity, I like to set up a small Christmas tree in our dramatic play home corner. Because this activity is so much fun, you can set it up on a table or in the math area too.
Your children will count and recount the decorations as they hang them on the tree. This is the perfect opportunity to discuss partitioning and to reinforce number bonds too.
Christmas Board Games
If your children are like mine, they love playing games. This idea to make a hands-on math board game is a great way to teach and revise math concepts and skills. Your children will be developing problem solving and social skills too.
A Christmas board game is the perfect Christmas math activity for a math investigation area, at math centers, for math group rotations and as an early finishers activity.
Your children will love this activity because they will create their very own Christmas board game.
Just provide your children with a large piece of cardboard or fabric as a game board base. Add some numbered cards and a few written game activity cards like
go back to start
miss a turn
go forward 3
go back 2
The children place the cards in a path or in an array to make a moveable game board.
You might like to stick your cards to the wooden blocks in your block play area. There are usually plenty of loose parts and props in this area to turn the game into an imaginative adventure.
Provide a selection of small Christmas figurines and props for the children to decorate and use in the game and don’t forget to add a couple of dice.
Christmas Counting Sensory Bin
Children learn everything through their senses, so I always try to include sensory play whenever possible. This Christmas sensory bin activity will teach number concepts and develop fine motor skills.
Sensory play is perfect for math investigation areas, math centers or as an early finisher’s activity. If you would like more ideas on how to incorporate sensory play into your Christmas activities, check out this blog post - Christmas Sensory Play
To make a Christmas sensory bin:
Place your sensory play base material in a tray. Try shredded cellophane or paper, red or green coloured rice or dried beans.
Next add some small Christmas themed manipulatives. Use small Christmas figurines or ornaments. You could also include pompoms, bows, bells, pieces of tinsel, mini-erasers, buttons, or red and green math manipulatives. You can add Christmas themed Story Stones too.
Teaching Tip: Add some numbered containers to encourage your children to sort and count the small Christmas manipulatives you have added. The numbered containers will also help to keep the area organised and tidy. Add a dice to encourage number games and add tongs or tweezers to help develop fine motor skills.
Make Numbered Christmas Paper Chains
Making numbered paper chains to decorate your classroom this Christmas will challenge your children and develop their problem solving and fine motor skills. This math take on paper chain making will consolidate your children’s math concepts in number and counting.
This activity is a good one for math investigation areas, math centers, math group rotations and early finishers.
Inviting your children to make paper chains is a low prep and easy to set up Christmas learning invitation. You will already have everything you need in your classroom.
All you need is:
a tray of coloured paper
rulers
scissors
pencils or felt pens
glue
To challenge your children and develop their problem-solving skills, make sure to display a prompt next to the tray to suggest what type of paper chains you would like them to make.
If you would like to save yourself some planning and prep time this Christmas, grab my Paper Chains Christmas Maths Activity. It has all the prompts and other printables you need to set up differentiated and educational paper chain Christmas activities.
Christmas Pattern Blocks
Your children can work on 2D shapes, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills with these easy Christmas learning provocations.
Invite your children to explore and discuss shapes and patterns as they create Christmas themed pictures using pattern blocks.
Pattern blocks are so versatile. I love how easy they are to set up and put away. You can use them in math investigation areas, math centers, math group rotations, STEM bins and trays, morning work and for early finishers.
For a hands-on Christmas math investigation area or center, just supply a basket of pattern blocks, a provocation prompt and optional task cards.
You might also like to add a text about 2D shapes, patterns or Christmas, some recording sheets, colouring pencils and even a camera for your children to record their work.
Christmas Loose Parts Play
Loose parts play has so many benefits for young children. They will develop hand-eye coordination, practice fine motor skills, build creative thinking, count, sort and explore patterns. If you are interested, you can read about all the benefits on this blog post – Benefits of Loose Parts Play
Add Christmas loose parts play to your small group rotations, morning work, independent work, play based centers, investigation areas and to activities for your early finishers.
I value loose parts play so much I have written another blog post devoted entirely to Christmas Loose Parts Play. You can read the Loose Parts Christmas Ideas blog post HERE. It has plenty of loose parts Christmas ideas for you to use in your classroom this year. It also covers the benefits of loose parts play and how you can use this valuable activity to spark curiosity and learning in your classroom.
I like to offer printed mats and provocation prompts in our loose parts play. Printable mats and prompts can encourage and guide your children to use the loose parts to learn and practice specific learning intentions.
Loose parts are so quick and easy to set up. That’s another reason I love them so much. All you need is a couple of loose parts mats and a prompt to display next to a tray of loose parts and you are done.
Don’t forget to add small tongs or tweezers to develop fine motor skills. Adding dice can encourage number work too.
Christmas Play Dough
Play dough is another wonderful loose part you can include in your loose parts play. Play dough is one of my must haves - not only at Christmas time, but ALL the year long!!
To help you out with some Christmas themed loose parts play, I have a FREE Christmas resource for you.
These free printable loose parts mats will be a great addition to your play dough table this Christmas. Your children will not only be developing their fine motor skills, but these mats will also help to teach and consolidate number concepts to 10 as well.
If you haven’t already, sign up to my email list. You'll also get access to the rest of the free printables library and be notified when new blog posts are published.
If you are keen to save yourself some planning time this Christmas and would like ALL THESE 7 ACTIVITIES, you can save money by investing in my Christmas Investigations BUNDLE. It works out that you get 3 hands-on Christmas activities for free.
This bundle contains 7 Christmas Math Investigations or hands-on math centers.
SAVE MONEY WHEN YOU BUY THE BUNDLE - YOU GET 3 OF THESE MATH ACTIVITIES FOR FREE WHEN YOU PURCHASE THIS BUNDLE
Use these 7 educational play based learning Christmas activities for your students to learn and revise math concepts and skills in a fun hands-on way.
PERFECT FOR:
small group rotations
morning work
independent work
play based centers
investigation areas
early finishers
Engage your students and save yourself planning and prep time this Christmas with these easy to organise hands-on Christmas activities.
Your children will sort and count Christmas decorations, revise number concepts to 20, represent numbers, order numbers, learn about 2D shapes, create and continue patterns, and develop problem solving, fine motor and social skills.
There are Christmas sensory tray ideas, play dough and loose parts mats, math board games, numbered paper chains to make, pattern blocks activities, and so much more in this engaging Christmas Math provocations pack.
THIS BUNDLE CONTAINS:
Instructions and ideas for setting up all the learning activities
Photographs of the investigation areas and math center set ups
Instructions to tile print the resources so you can change the print-out size to suit your needs
46 Christmas themed learning provocation posters of math prompts
30 board game cards so your students can create their own Christmas board game
6 differentiated Christmas game boards to print
Instructions and printables to make 40 different Christmas story stones
Instructions to make coloured rice, pasta or dried beans for your sensory bin base
A 20-frame Christmas themed recording mat
Instructions and printables for your students to make numbered paper chains
4 differentiated reproducible paper chain sheets
10 illustrated pattern block task cards in A5 size
2 sets of 8 differentiated pattern block challenge cards in A4 size
10 task cards to teach students to continue a pattern
A task card to teach students to create a pattern
Christmas play dough mats for numbers 1 to 10 (numeral, word & ten frame)
20 counting provocation prompts - one for each number from 1 to 20 in A5 size
20 Christmas counting display posters/cards for numbers 0 to 20 in A5 size
13 pattern mats for loose parts play
8 2D shape mats for loose parts play
A comprehensive list of Christmas loose parts ideas
22 different reproducible recording sheets in A5 size to choose from
8 reproducible math story recording sheets in A4 size to choose from
I hope you found some useful Christmas maths activities for your play-based classroom in this blog post.
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