Hide and Seek Math

Incorporating math lessons in toddler and preschooler activities have been pretty easy.  You know, count stairs when you climb...buttons on a shirt...dividing sandwiches in halves and fourths.  But moving out of basic math principles is so not my thing.  Ask my husband, I still don't have my multiplication tables memorized.

But, my big one likes math and numbers and needed more challenge.  Here's a fun beginning addition and subtraction activity that he loved.

I took a stack of index cards (one of my keep-on-hand tools) and wrote out the numerals 1-10.  On another stack of cards, I wrote out 10 basic math problems whose solutions corresponded with the number cards.  Make sure you have each number covered or it kind of kills the game.  Not that I know from experience or anything...

While I was doing this, my big kid was given the task of drawing out his ten favorite Sesame Street characters (I gave him a size restriction) and writing their names on another piece of paper.  We are huge Sesame Street fans in this house!  This kept him busy while I figured out the math problems.

The buttons are what I had on hand to use as "counters."  We've used pennies, beans & beads too.

After the big kid finished cutting out his pictures and names, I sent him into the other room while I hid the characters under the number cards.  I put the names next the coordinating match problem.  Trying to sneak in a little literacy lesson too.  The big kid was seriously fighting me on the reading thing when we did this activity.  I didn't push him to read the name but just implied that it was a hint to who he would find.

My big kid thought this hide and seek activity was great fun.  I loved that it met my criteria for a successful activity: fun, challenging for developing brains and the energy expended by mom to prep the activity didn't exceed the time and energy spent by little hands enjoying it.