Math Game for Kids: Cute Counting Snowman

One of the things I really enjoy doing as a parent is creating simple, fun, and educational games for my daughter to explore.

This one is especially simple. It requires just a few simple materials I found around the house and takes no more than 10 minutes to pull together.

But despite its simplicity, it teaches to a number of skills--number recognition, counting, and one-to-one correspondence included.

You Will Need:

• card stock snowman shape (I traced 3 bowls to make ours)
• several card stock hat shapes
• markers
• buttons
• a serving tray or cookie sheet

How To Play:

To prepare the game, I asked my little one to give the snowman a face while I wrote a number on each of the coloured hat shapes. Since she mastered the lower numbers quite a while ago, I decided to focus on numbers 5 through 15 this time around, but obviously the numbers used can change depending on the abilities of the child.

With our pieces prepped and ready to go, I set out our snowman and his hats and buttons on a plastic serving tray. While not necessary, I find that using a tray or cookie sheet contains the small parts and defines the play area in games like these.In no time at all, we were ready to play!

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I explained that we needed to get the snowman dressed and that we had to make sure that his outfits 'matched' by ensuring that the number of buttons on his tummy corresponded with the numeral on his hat. With that, my little one excitedly got to work. She'd select a hat, place it on the snowman's head, and tell me the number it said. Then, she'd carefully add buttons to his tummy, counting them as she went, and counting them again afterwards to double-check.  

When she was done with one outfit, she'd undress the snowman by removing the hat and buttons, and the process would begin once again (and again and again). In fact, she played so many rounds that I'm thinking I'd better get the game pieces laminated before it's too late!

This post was originally published in January 2014.