The set of printable counting cards includes apples with numbers 1-12 along with 2 apples without numbers.  These 2 apples can be found at the beginning of the downloaded file and are meant to be used with toddlers (supervised with the apple seeds) or with preschoolers who aren’t ready to identify numbers quite yet.

This activity is super easy to set up!  Print the apple cards on cardstock, cut them apart, and laminate them so they last forever. (I use this laminator all the time and have had it now for over 5 years!)

You will need to collect apple seeds from apples before setting this activity up to play.  I am collecting seeds right now for my preschool class to use and in one apple I found 8 seeds.  I have no idea if this is normal, but I’m hoping to score just as many tomorrow!

If apple seeds are too complicated to use in your situation, try play dough seeds (like we did in our watermelon cards), dried black beans, or even paper seeds.

My preschoolers are going to love these counting cards!  And I am going to love all the sneaky skills that they will be using and developing without even realizing it.

Number recognition will be tough at the beginning of the school year, so I will probably team up preschoolers in pairs to work together.  Counting to 10 is a skill many preschoolers come into my classroom knowing, but the one-to-one correspondence is trickier.  We learn to point and count in a rhythm to encourage counting objects correctly.  With this activity, we will pinch and count!