Teaching toddlers and preschoolers how to count helps them understand numbers, patterns and sequencing, setting them up for future math success. Modeling how to count is easy, and finding fun ways to incorporate hands-on counting activities into the day helps busy parents support their child's learning without turning on a screen or printing out a worksheet.
Sing Songs
Classic silly and fun counting songs like "Five Little Ducks" or "Five Little Speckled Frogs" are wonderful ways to make counting fun. Plus they distract kids when they are feeling grouchy.
Puppets
Use finger puppets and count as you put a puppet on each finger. "1 puppet! 2 puppets! 3 puppets! 4 puppets! 5 puppets!" and so forth. Removing the finger puppets one by one also models counting backwards. We have some fun printable finger puppets kids can make.
Play Board Games
Classic board games like Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders offer excellent opportunities to count. Players count out loud as they move tokens on the board. For a cooperative board game, try Hoot Owl Hoot.
Nursery Rhymes
Recite nursery rhymes like "One, two buckle my shoe" or "One, two, three, four, five. Once I caught a fish alive." Not only can nursery rhymes help with counting, they are excellent at boosting literacy development, too!
Play with Dice and Dominoes
Count the number of pips on dice after a roll, or the number of pips on a domino.
Block Play
If there is only one toy you buy for your kids, it should be a set of unit blocks. Kids can count the blocks as they stack them, but the benefits of playing with blocks cannot be overstated.
Egg Carton Counting
In an empty egg carton write the numbers 1-12. Kids then count out small objects (only for kids who don't put objects in their mouth) like buttons or beans into the egg cartons. See how we performed this counting activity with pompoms.
MORE: Preschool Bean Counting Activity
Counting With Error Control
Error control is a typical Montessori technique for counting-based activities. Learn about how to set up a counting activity with error control.
Read Counting Books
Some of the best toddler and preschool books are also counting books. See our favorite math board books. You can also count the pages as you turn them.
Skip Counting
Once kids have the basics of counting by 1s, they can move on to activites to help learn how to skip count. Skip counting is great for learning skills for solving math problems like addition and multiplication.
Dot-to-Dots
Dot-to-Dot activities not only help with counting, they also help build fine motor muscles necessary for handwriting and other everyday tasks.
Count Everyday Objects
Walk around your house or neighborhood and count objects you see everyday. Kids can count their toy cars, spoons, the birds they see on a walk, chairs around the dinner table, how many people are wearing purple shirts, etc. The sky is the limit!
Count Stairs
Every time you walk up stairs with your child, count them! If you know the number of stairs in total, count backwards as you descend the stairs.
Play Hopscotch
It's always a good idea to incorporate movement with learning. If you can't get outside to draw a hopscotch board with sidewalk chalk, create one on your floor using low-tack painters tape.
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