If you have a preschool or kindergarten age child, this is a wonderfully fun math game that will keep them entertained for quite a while!
With different ways to play, they will be able to get a lot out of this fall math activity!
My son is 4 at the time of writing this post, and I’m really loving his mind for math games and math activities. But, he is all boy, and completely full of energy!
What that means for me is that finding activities to hold his attention for more than 5-10 minutes can be tough.
But I’m happy to report that this Fall Leaves Math Game kept him busy for a FULL 30 minutes!!
That’s a win right there, mama!
Plus, it’s crazy easy to put together, and can be used for 2 different levels of proficiency!
Fall Leaves Math Game for Preschool and Kindergarten
One to one counting, number recognition, color recognition, pencil grip strengthening, and scissor skills… this easy fall math activity has it all!
And if you are playing with a child old enough to use scissors to help you, this activity is even more fun as they can cut out their own leaves.
This is what my 4 year old spent about 10 minutes doing while I set up the clothes pins and numbered each leave as he finished them.
All in all, we spent over 30 minutes creating and playing this fall math activity!
Step One:
Draw leaf shapes on various fall colored construction paper. We used green, red, yellow, and orange.
Don’t stress too much about this! I drew extremely rough shapes and my son cut them out. They aren’t perfect by any means, and they were still super fun!
RELATED: Family Tree Fall Leaves Activity
Y’all, he was SO excited to be able to cut out all the leaves himself!
I did end up cutting 2 additional leaves because I realized I wanted 3 total yellow and 3 total green leaves… But he did the rest!
Step Two:
Next, you’ll need to “dot” all the numbers.
Originally I had planned on doing 1 through 20, but ended up just doing 1 through 10.
I’m glad I did, because it ended up being the perfect challenge and he would have been too “taxed” at the end of 1 through 20.
I’m sure there is a “proper way” to dot these, but I didn’t worry about that too much, as you can see! I just used a sharpie and made the little dots as evenly as I could 😉
You can also see the perfect imperfections of the leaves that were cut by a precious 4 year old, all by himself!
Step Three:
Label your clothes pins with the numbers 1 through 10, and on the back match the color to the leaf color that has that same number of dots.
For example, if you have a yellow leaf with 7 dots then you would write the number 7 on one side of the clothes pin and color a square of yellow on the other side.
This would allow your child to either just match color to color if they are very young, or to use the colors as an answer check.
They could count the dots, find the number and then flip it over to make sure the color matches the leaf they have found. Fun!
Math Activity: Different Ways to Play
Once you have all the pieces finished, it’s time to play!
As I mentioned, you can play this math game in a couple of different ways that will allow you to fit this to your child’s level.
1. Matching Colors: Flip the clothes pins and the leaves over on their color only sides and you can let your child match them that way while they are learning their number shapes.
2. Matching Dots to Numbers: You can help your child work on their one-to-one counting and number recognition by flipping the dotted side of the leaves, and the number sides of the clothes pins over for a second round of game play!
Storing This Math Activity
Once you’re done playing, you can store all the pieces in a quart ziploc baggie and label the front, if desired.
My son ran into the dining room today and grabbed the baggie off the school shelf to go play this fun math activity in his room. So sweet!
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Amy says
Oh I love this one too. the fall leaf math game with the clothes pin. Thank you for sharing.