Counting Friends: A Simple Hands-On Counting Activity for Preschoolers

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Use your child’s favorite toys to help them count to twenty. This hands-on counting activity will keep preschoolers engaged for a long time.

My 4-year-old is really into playing with small toys right now. It could be anything from farm animals to Peppa Pig. She throws them all into a bucket and takes them everywhere.

I thought to myself…there must be an activity I can do with all these little friend toys she loves to play with so much. It’s like a tiny light went on right at that moment, COUNTING!

I whipped up some number cards real quick on the computer. The little friend toys were already collected in a bucket, and we were ready to start this fun counting activity.

Hands-On Counting Activity with Toys

This math activity will help young learners practice number recognition, counting and fine motor skills! It’s a great activity for toddlers, preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten age kids.

What You’ll Need

• A bunch of small toys

• Printable 1-20 number cards (click to download)

• A container to keep the small toys in

What You’ll Do

The first thing I did was print the number cards and cut them out. I went over all the numbers with my daughter, and we put them in order on the floor.

Before I could really say anything else she started to place her friends next to the number cards. I told her that she had to put the correct number of friend to match the number on each card.

How did my daughter do with this activity?

Well, this activity was already a hit even before it started, because she was so excited to use her friends during an activity.

She did the first 7 numbers fairly quickly, but when she got to number 8 she struggled. She started to count the number of friends she was adding to the number 8 card, but she kept losing track and had to start over.

We talked about ways that might make it easier to keep track. The first thing she said was, “Let’s line them up”. PERFECT!

From the number 8 on she lined up the friends behind each number card, and it really helped her finish the activity and not get frustrated.