Want to add a little craftiness to preschool math? Break out the glue gun and create this button board! With a few simple materials, your child will be practicing some key preschool math concepts, but having a ball in the process.
What You Need:
- glue gun
- buttons in several colors
- 12-inch square of heavy cardboard or craft foam
- shoelace or length of yarn
What You Do:
Before you sit your child down, take out your glue gun and glue the buttons onto the heavy cardboard, using a variety of colors and sizes and spreading them out into rows. When the glue is dry, it’s time to play!
- Shapes Galore! Give your child the shoelace or piece of yarn and show her how to wrap it around the buttons to make designs. In preschool, she’s learning to draw shapes. Ask her to try to create a triangle, a rectangle, a square, and so on, with her length of string. If she gets stuck, remind her that “a triangle has three sides”, or “a square has four equal lines.”
- Count It! Give your child some practice with “one-to-one correspondence”, in other words, being able to point to actual objects and count them aloud, one by one. Assign her a number and ask her to wrap her string around that amount of buttons. It may seem obvious to you that the spoken number “four” relates to four objects, but this is something preschoolers need to learn, and buttons can help.
- Sorting, anyone? Being able to divide objects into groups is another key preschool math skill. Give your child some practice, by asking her to wrap the shoelace or yarn around a specific group of buttons, for example, “big buttons”, “little buttons” or “only red ones.”
Preschool math is more than learning to count from one to ten. This button board gives kids hands-on practice. Plus, it’s just plain fun to have around!
By Trish Kuffner
Adapted with permission from "The Arts and Crafts Busy Book" by Trish Kuffner (Meadowbrook Press), a collection of fun activities for preschoolers.
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