How to Practice Counting in Preschool + Downloadable Printable!

Counting is one of the first academic things we think to start teaching our kids when they are little. Children are like little sponges from ages 1 to 5, they absorb so much information! Getting little ones to count to three or five is usually pretty easy, but as you add more numbers for them to remember it gets a little trickier. The best ways to practice counting in preschool are repetition, fun, and a hands-on approach.

Related: Five Ways to Teach Preschoolers to Count

Teaching Preschoolers to Count

Counting practice before your child gets to kindergarten gives them a solid foundation with numbers and get them ready for math class. This can start as simple as verbal repetition. You count to three, and then you ask your child to count to three. Pretty soon, they know to say the numbers “One, Two, Three,” on command, but at this point, they have no idea what it means. The magic happens when you start associating the words with objects. One cookie, two cookies, three cookies. Now we are getting somewhere. You can practice using the things your child loves. This post gives more detail on how number awareness develops in children.

Practice Counting in Preschool with these fun activities

Make a list of your child’s favorite toys, foods, and obsessions, then gather them for some practice. If your child’s favorite toy is matchbox cars use those. What if her favorite toy is stuffed animals? Count them! If she likes grapes, you count grapes. For a special treat, you can count little candies. If he is obsessed with dinosaurs, consider buying some of these little dinosaur counters to practice with. Counting favorite toys, counters, or food is a great hands-on way to practice counting in preschool.

Counting in real life

Look for natural opportunities throughout your day to practice with your child. Driving down the road, you can tally blue cars, white cars, black cars, or stop signs. Picking up toys, you can count them as you put them back in the toy bin. Walking through the grocery store, you can count aisles, oranges, or even count how many other children you see. At bedtime, you can count together how many books you will read before lights out. Fit as much practice into your day as you can without making it frustrating. Repetition is KEY! Your goal is to get your child comfortable with numbers to twenty by kindergarten.

Make it relevant

One of the ways to motivate your child with any type of learning is to make it relevant. Ask a child to split jelly beans evenly between himself and his siblings makes counting relevant. Having your child count the LEGO bricks in his tower makes it relevant. Expecting your child to count the eggs you are collecting — that’s more relevant to you than it is to him. It’s still somewhat relevant, but not quite as enticing. We’ve already mentioned favorite foods and favorite toys, what are some other ways you can get into your child’s world and make it relevant and important to her?

A few different ways to make numbers fun

Don’t put too much pressure on your child to learn fast. Make learning hands-on with favorite toys, foods, and household objects. Build-in repetition throughout your day. Keep counting fun with variety, toys, games, puzzles, and books. Make it relevant by finding reasons your child will want to count, like splitting up candy or tallying coins to spend. Before you know it, your child will be counting to twenty and beyond!

Counting Books

Ten Black Dots   [10 BLACK DOTS-BOARD]One Fox: A Counting Book Thriller1 2 3 Count with Me (Trace-and-Flip Fun!) Counting Collection: Counting CarsOne Little Reindeer: A Counting Playbook

Counting Toys

Nuby 10 Count (Pack of 1) Little Squirts Fun Bath ToysLEGO DUPLO My First Number TrainMini Muffin Match Up Counting Toy Set

Counting Games

ThinkFun Zingo 1-2-3 The Fast Number BingoCounting Bears  STEM Educational Toy for Pre-SchoolCounting Addition Game Monkey BalanceLittle Genius Starter Kit for Fire Tablet + STEM Toy

Counting Puzzles

Match It! – Correcting Number & Learn to Count PuzzleWooden Educational Math Toys for ToddlersCounting Chameleon Bilingual Wooden Numbers PuzzlePreschool Animal Counting Puzzle for Toddlers

Practice With These Additional Printables

We have created several printables perfect for your practicing with your preschoolers. These are wonderful to help your little one start practicing their number recognition and counting skills, but they are definitely just a starting point. Add these to any unit or lesson and you’ve got extra practice with very little effort! If you’re working on a farm theme don’t miss the Counting Ducks Printable Pack and Farm Girl Counting Pack. And if you have a jelly bean fan, don’t miss the Counting with Jelly Beans pack!

Practice Counting in Preschool with Seatwork

Using worksheets to help your child learn to count can really help reinforce the idea that numbers mean something and get your child ready for kindergarten. Using our Ornament Counting Book, you have your child place one cheerio or one M&M on each ornament as you count. Once you are done practicing with food, you can have your child color each ornament as you count. If he or she doesn’t like coloring, you could use little chart stickers and place each one as you count.

Having your child count ornaments on your actual Christmas tree will be a great tie-in activity to help connect the images to real life. These ideas bring a hands-on element to seatwork and teach one-to-one correspondence. Each page builds on the next and makes it easy for your preschoolers to practice. As an added bonus these activities help develop fine motor skills.

The pages in our ornament counting book include the following:

• Counting Pages 1-20, with a place to practice writing the number.
• Ten-Square Pages for Numbers 1-20, asking your child to color the appropriate number of squares for each number (or use chart stickers.)
• Counting Activity for numbers 1-10, without the number provided, where your child needs to count and come up with the correct number.
• Ten Writing Practice Pages for Numbers 1-10.

Download your Christmas Ornament Counting Book today

Our ornament counting book has many different ways to practice counting in preschool and covers the following skills: number recognition, counting practice, writing numbers, number words, and one-to-one correspondence.

To download the Christmas Ornament Counting Book, simply add it to your cart and then checkout. **Upon checkout, you will be added to my Weekly Newsletter list.**