The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

Beans and Flower Pots Counting Activity

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Have fun playing this beans and flower pots counting activity using the simplest of materials! Playful, hands-on maths for preschoolers to school age children, which can easily be adapted to become more challenging if needed.Beans and flower pots counting activity

After using some simple dried beans (we used butter beans) in this colour sorting activity and again for this alphabet matching tray, we used them again to practise some counting skills! That’s 3 separate activities from one small bag of dried beans, and each set will last for some time.Counting beans maths game

I set some plain beans into a basket and then wrote numbers from 1 to 20 on some little planter pots (very cheap from the garden centre), using a Sharpie permanent marker. I set these out for them to play with on a table.Counting beans into flower pots game

Miss 5 enjoyed using all of the pots up to 20, counting out the beans carefully using 1:1 correspondence and checking to make sure she had the right amount for the higher numbers.

Flower pot bean counting game

She was able to put the pots into the correct order and read the numerals to check too.Counting beans maths activity

Miss 4 enjoyed using some of the smaller numbers and tried some of the teen ones too, counting each bean by moving it to make sure she had the right number of each.

Bean counting activity

 

Miss 2 loved playing too and spent a lot of time tipping and transferring beans between pots and stirring them up. She saw that the bigger girls were counting beans out, and started to recite some numbers in order as she filled up pots too.Beans and flower pots number activity

 

You could introduce the idea of adding together two pots full of beans to find the total amount, or even move onto subtraction for older children. Working on ordering the number pots is a crucial step too, as is ensuring they are using correct 1:1 correspondence as they count out each bean. We encourage them to move them as they count to make sure they don’t make mistakes as they count.

What they are learning as they play:

maths: recognising numerals to 5, then to 10, then up to 20; counting using 1:1 correspondence, ordering numbers, counting objects up to 10 and then up to 20, combining small sets of numbers, subtracting small sets of numbers

The children are currently 5, 4 and 2

See all of our Playful Maths ideas activities here!

 

Comments

  2. Anita says

    My 4 year old loved this. We then used the pots to play’ shops’ after the counting exercise and I bought pots of beans from the shop. We are looking forward to using the pots to make ice creams like the ones from the ice cream van. We will use cotton wool as the counting measure instead of the beans and may add real sprinkles onto the ice creams. !

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