Another holiday is here and children everywhere are beginning to anticipate the wonder and magic of the season. Why not keep the learning going with some holiday math activities? This article describes five great Christmas and holiday themed number activities for preschoolers and young children. With some creative thinking, math can be introduced into the many facets of the holiday hustle and bustle. Check out these fun math activities and ideas.
Holiday Stocking Multiplication
Counting has never been more exciting! Fill Christmas stockings with an equal number of small gift boxes. Assign one stocking to each child and have him count and record the contents. Then, put children in pairs and have them count how many gifts they have in total (multiplication by two). Switch to assigning the counting tasks to groups of three, four, or five children and build a multiplication chart from the activity.
Candy Cane Pattern Problems
Provide to each young child with a black and white handout of a candy cane with ten stripes or more. Label the first few stripes with a letter or number indicating a color to fill in. Organize the color codes in simple patterns. One example of a pattern might be red, white, red, and white. Another more complex one might be red, white, white, red.
Ask the children to figure out what colors will come next in the candy cane stripe pattern. Once they have solved the pattern problem in the holiday math activity, they can follow through by coloring the rest of their candy cane pictures.
Favorite Christmas Cookie Chart
Have children come up with a short list of common types of holiday cookies such as chocolate chip, sugar, gingerbread, and oatmeal raisin. Then, have them vote for their favorite ones. Tally up the votes and do a bar chart showing the holiday counting game results. Which cookie is the most popular? Which one is the least?
Rank the cookies in order of popularity and follow the holiday charting project by showing the results in a pie chart format. (Get creative and call it a cookie chart!)
Reindeer Leg Counting Activity
Create a felt board with a Christmas sleigh and have several felt reindeer handy. Ask the children to add reindeer to the sleigh to help pull the load. If one reindeer is pulling Santa’s sleigh, ask the kids how many legs there are. If there are two reindeer, then have them count how many legs are tugging the goods now. Keep adding reindeer and help the kids count the legs.
A Map for Santa Clause
Children will love to use geometric and measurement skills to draw maps for Santa. Start by having them identify landmarks that are close by their homes (that Santa knows how to get to). It could be the stop sign on the corner, the mailbox of a neighbor, or a small store. Then have the children draw a map to their houses from the chosen landmark.
Alternatively, the holiday math activity map project could be a simple diagram of the inside of a child's house. An example would be to draw a map from the chimney to the Christmas tree, or from the front door to the plate of Christmas cookies.
Math concepts do not have to be boring, difficult, or intimidating and don't necessarily have to take away from the Christmas holiday cheer. With a few well planned holiday math activities, children may find that they even like counting! During the holidays, reinforce kids’ math skills when they are at their happiest and demonstrate that learning their numbers can truly bring them joy.
Readers may also enjoy Fun Math Activities for Preschoolers for more creative math games and activities. Check out the Best Educational Math Games for Kids, a listing of some board games that improve math skills. These would make great holiday gifts for young kids! Do the kids love science? Then why not try a few Fun Science Activities for Preschoolers, too?
 |
