Milk Caps Math

My three year old loves to play with the growing collection of milk caps and lids. I am planning some sort of mural using the recycled lids, but until then we are getting lots of fun math skills in! So far we have used the milk caps for:

Ladybug Math activity

Milk caps make great math counters for little fingers.

Milk caps make great eyes in art projects.

I have made up a couple of Busy Bags for my kids that have a collection of milk caps with stickers on them to decorate. It's a simple but fun activity when you are waiting in a restaurant!

My older son is becoming a chess fanatic and it's frustrating to my daughter because he's busy and she can't touch the chess pieces. So I brought out a checkers board...and it didn't interest her at all. Then I sat our collection of lids next to the board and VOILA, instant activity. She slowly put the caps onto the board until every space was covered. At times she seemed to be matching the lids by color and size too. What a fun way to practice one-to-one correspondence. 

Later we sorted the collection by color and began to build a simple graph. Big brother stopped by to explain that they had to be lined up just so you could compare the number. She listened attentively and even helped him rearrange the graph. Ahhhhhhhh....I love having his voice in teaching our little girl.

Ladybug Math

My sweet girl loves counting so I thought I should whip up a new set of math manipulatives for her to play and learn with!

I made a set of ladybugs out of milk jug lids (see where I got inspired at the bottom of this post). On each ladybug I put dots for her to count. On the inside of the lid I wrote the numeral. Then I made a paper leaf for her to match the ladybugs to the correct numeral. She can look on the inside of the lid as a way to self check. I didn't laminate the leaf since this was an impromptu project.

I like the idea so much though that I am going to make up a couple of sets for my preschool class. I was think of making several different types of leaves and maybe a few different types of bugs. I'll post more when I finish them.

My daughter got the set of ladybugs below for her birthday last year. They come apart so she can match the three pieces of the same color, and then count the dots, and 'read' the numeral on the bugs head. She has played with these for over a year and loves them. This morning I thought I would ask her to put them in order starting with one. We haven't really worked on that skill but she put them in order 1, 2, 3, and then needed help deciding if 5 or 4 should come next. I love toys that are both fun and educational!

And here's just a random picture of my sweet girl and me. We were doing a scratch art project at Kids Fest in Burlington. I am excited for summer full of fun activities as a family!!!

Where I got the idea to transform milk jug lids into ladybugs - http://vandenbrandewendy.blogspot.com/2012/05/knutselen-lieveheersbeestje.html

Egg Carton Math

Sorry this photo is side-ways!

We've just got back from a great beach vacation and we're stuck inside on a rainy day. I bribed my son to take a nap with the promise of playing a new game when he wakes up. So I went online to find a game to practice single digit addition. In my google reader I found a great activity that was just posted.

I loved that it would take no time to prep and that we had everything we needed on hand. I labeled the egg carton as suggested and found our big foam dice to make it even more fun. For counters I decided to use pom poms since they fit in the spaces and our unifex cubes only have 10 per color.

To play: Each players takes a turn by rolling two dice. They find the total by adding the two dice together. Then they put one of their counters (pom pom) into the space of that number. The next player goes and puts their color counter in the space for the number they roll. The goal is to be the first person to have a counter in each space. Since you can't roll a one, the first space has a star. If you roll a number and the space is already filled with your counter then you put one in the 'star' space. After that, if you roll a number more than once you lose your turn.

Click on the link for the full instructions and a free printable version of the directions.
  http://downunderteacher.blogspot.com/2011/08/freebie-eggs-act-sums.html

And so my sweet two year old has a similar game to play, I put together a tray for her. I added a strawberry huller, tweezers, and a spoon for her to practice her fine motor skills. The dice is just for fun. She is just learning one:one correspondence so I will talk to her about putting just one pom pom into each space.

This should keep them busy for a bit! And it will be a good activity to keep on the shelf for another rainy day! Thanks "Down Under Teacher" for this activity!