Number Beanbag Toss

Take a simple game like beanbag toss and incorporate a learning component to improve your preschooler's number recognition skills. Help your child learn her numbers and develop her hand-eye coordination. This is a great game to play outdoors and with plenty of people. So invite the whole family to join in the number fun!

What You Need:

• Stencils
• Markers
• Construction paper
• Masking
• Tape
• Beanbags

Set-Up:

1. Trace around stencils of large numbers 1–5 onto construction paper.
2. Use markers to fill in each number.
3. Tape off a ladder-like shape or grid on the floor with five sections.
4. Tape the numbers in ascending order inside the squares.
5. Place the beanbags near the floor grid.

What to Do:

1. Gather the children and tell them to look at the floor. Call their attention to the numbers inside the squares and see if they can name them.
2. Tell the children that they are going to learn their numbers in a fun way with the beanbags. Show them how to throw the beanbag into one of the numbered squares.
3. Give the first child a beanbag and see how far he can throw it. Have him call out the number on which his bag lands, hop from number to number, retrieve the beanbag, and hop back.
4. The children take turns doing this until every child has had a turn.
5. If you would like, you can make a graph on chart paper and write down the number that each child gets on his turn, like a scoreboard so the children can see you write the numbers that they are seeing on the floor.
6. At the end of the activity, see how much your child has learned by asking a few questions: Can she count using the correct number names? Can she name a given number? Can she throw the beanbag with consistent accuracy?

Variation: Make this game more challenging by adding more numbers and making the grid larger. Older children can begin to add up their own scores on chart paper.