Leaf Pile Number Challenge
Post by Contributing Writer Amy
What kid doesn’t love playing in a big pile of leaves? Mine are always asking me to help them rake so they can play in the leaves. I decided to mix some mathematics into it with this fun activity!
You’ll need:
- Foam Bath Numbers
- Washable Markers
- Yard Stick (or straight edge)
- Large sheet of paper (We have the end of a roll of newsprint we got from the newspaper office for free!)
- Leaves raked into a pile
I laid out all the numbers and drew the lines to make a chart first. Then, I traced around each number and wrote the word underneath it for environmental print. This helps kids develop phonemic awareness seeing that word for zero starts with z and so on. It also serves to make them aware of the fact that numbers can be written out as a word and as the symbol.
Put your numbers in the pile and mix it up so they are no longer visible in the pile. My girls thought this was like hide and seek so they closed their eyes for this part. :)
Let the kids dig through the pile to find a number. When they do, they can run to the chart and put it in its place.
Before they can run back to the pile to search for another number, the challenge is to lay out that many leaves on the chart.
When all the numbers are found, you can challenge them to do 10 and beyond. They can trace the numbers and add it to the chart.
Hooray for number recognition and one-to-one correspondence! Because I’m sure that is what they are thinking, too. :)
Amy is a former reading and third grade teacher as well as a mother to three little girls with big personalities. She believes joy can always be found in playing, learning, and ice cream.
