We hada set of bear counters in our closet that were just sitting there, so I spent the last couple of weeks finding math ideas for my toddler, preschooler, kindergartner, and second grader. If you have a set of bears, all the activities are free! And if you don’t have bears, you can use another colored manipulative instead. Math activities with counting bears 1 – Colors –Color Sorting Printable Preschool Math with Counting Bears – Count the bears and line them up to fill up the spaces on this counting printable.

Counting Bear Clip Cards– Use counting bear clip cards to practice fine motor skills and counting with these clip cards. Practice patterns. Create patterns with your bear counters: red-blue-red-blue and the like. Make the patterns as easy or as hard as your child enjoys! Teaching maths concepts using concrete materials can improve overall number sense and can create a fun, hands-on experience for young learners. Students play this maths game by placing the teddy counters on the game board which is organised into groups of five. It can be linked to the way tens frames have rows of five which may help assist with counting and simple addition. Small Groups or Teacher-ledMeasuring objects may seem a bit boring for young kids, but when given a chance to measure their favorite toys and use a fun, nonstandard unit of measurement like counting bears, children will enjoy this activity more than you would expect! I showed my son the toys and the bear counters and told him that he was going to have the chance to measure his toys and see how big (or small) they were. He was going to line the bear counters up one by one next to the toys and see how many bear counters long or wide each toy was. Rainbow Bear Dice Game for Preschoolers– This is a super fun game that requires no extra prep work.

Bear Counter Pattern Strips for Preschoolers– Turn this pattern strips into a fun and portable game for your preschoolers to use with their counting bears. The directions are simple: fill each letter with teddy bear counters until you’ve completed your entire name. One benefit to this activity as it gives students a chance to “trace” the letters of their name without having to use a pencil/marker. Manipulating the bear counters and filling in each letter with them is a great opportunity for visual learners to take a “mental snapshot” of the picture/word they are creating (Do you ever remember where something is written in a book? The location of the words on the paper/color of the writing/and even font? Visual learners can remember information easier when their visual cortex is stimulated. This activity is a great way help early learners do that!) Roll the dice game helps build children maths skills. Start by Rolling two dice and build the array on the paper. For example, if you roll dice and 3 and a 2 comes up then, fill the boxes with the counters. At the end write the multiplication problem and count the total number of counters. This post is part of a new series I am involved in called Learning with Manipulatives. Each Tuesday, a group of bloggerswill be sharing hands-on activitiesyou can do with a specific manipulative. This week we are featuring rainbow counters!Math Activities with Counting Bears – Lots of fun math activity ideas to use counting bears in your homeschool. Counting Bears Mats When my kids were little, they loved counting. We would count everything. You name it, we counted it. If your children enjoy counting, they are going to have a lot of fun with these counting bears worksheets and printable activities. There are many ways you could use these free counting bear printables! What makes this resource great is that it can be used either in the classroom or at home, so it’s perfect for teachers, parents, and home-educators. You can use these cards as props for creating sums and ask children questions like: ‘If I had 3 red bears and 4 blue bears, how many bears would I have in total?’

Counting Bears Bus Mats– Fill up the teddy bear bus with counting bears and matching the numbers on the number cards.

The winner is the first player to collect 10 points or the player with the most points when it is time to finish the game. Looking for math activities with counting bears? You’ll find ideas in here fortoddlers all the way through second grade!

These fabulous Colourful Counting Bear Cards are the perfect resource to help children along with learning to count. When it comes to learning how to count, this can be quite daunting for children - and this is even before we get to the likes of multiplication and division! Using these free printable counting bears can help children visualise the counting process and strengthen their adding skills.

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The math curriculum at my kids’ school has a strong focus on ten frames, so I was excited to find some wonderful ten frame teaching ideas at Boy Mama Teacher Mama. I printed these frames for free and used them in a game with my Five and Seven. They each rolled a die, put that number of bears on the frame, and then chose a different color of bears to fill in the rest of the frame. Finally, they wrote an addition problem to show an answer up to ten. Use one 10- or 12-sided die and one smaller die with each roll. Then subtract the difference and that is the number of bears the player can take.