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January 9, 2016 By Nicole Franklin · Leave a Comment

Snowball Counting Trees Busy Bag

Don’t put away all of your Christmas supplies yet!  Just as I was finishing packing up the rest of my December materials, I came across our felt trees that my preschoolers decorated with buttons and foam circles.  We have been working with dice and numbers, so I already had most of the items out and on hand for this math roll and count activity!
This snowball counting busy bag can easily be used at different stages of counting and it encourages number recognition and early addition skills!
Roll dice & count pom pom snowballs - simple fine motor, math activity for preschoolers
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How to Play Snowball Roll & Count

The supplies are simple!
  • white pom poms (snowballs!)
  • green felt or construction paper
  • dice 
I love the dice I ordered last year for my preschoolers.  You can view them {HERE}.  Most of my preschoolers are 3 years-old and counting the tiny dots on a regular die is difficult, even with strong 1:1 correspondence skills.  The dice that show the numeral instead lessen the stress during play and strengthen number recognition!  And the set comes with 1-6 and then 7-12, so it grows with the child’s skill set.
Roll dice & count pom pom snowballs - simple fine motor, math activity for preschoolers
The busy bag is easy to set up.  Either cut a tree shape out of the felt or construction paper.  Or really you could draw a green triangle shape on a paper to play!
The object of the game is to roll the die, recognize the number, and add the correct number of snowballs (pom poms) to the tree.
This activity is a great way to work on hand-eye coordination, especially with the toddler and younger preschool aged group.  It also allows practice with counting and using 1:1 correspondence.  In my classroom we use a lot of “point and count, point and count, point and count” during the day.  I’ll count in a dramatic rhythm to encourage my preschoolers to do the same.
During this activity, instead of “point and count,” think “drop and count, drop and count” with each snowball!
Roll dice & count pom pom snowballs - simple fine motor, math activity for preschoolers
When my preschoolers played this roll and count game, I noticed that there are so many levels of knowledge with number skills at this point in the year.  Some preschoolers could not recognize all the numbers 1-6, so I paired those kids up with a partner to play.
Other kids could play, roll, count, and add the snowballs quickly and accurately.  When this happened, instead of adding the larger numbered dice (and possibly adding frustration), I added another die that included the numbers 1-6.  Now we are working with early adding skills without my preschoolers even realizing they were rocking big kid skills!
Roll dice & count pom pom snowballs - simple fine motor, math activity for preschoolers
When using 2 dice, they would split the tree in half and add one set of snowballs to the top half of the tree and the other to the bottom.  After the snowballs were put on the tree correctly, they counted to find the total number of snowballs.  And seriously, some of my 3’s impressively rocked this activity!
We’ve been having “snow” much fun in preschool with our winter activities!  Check them all out:
LETTER MATCHING SNOWBALL FIGHT!
SNOWBALL FINE MOTOR BUSY BAG
SNOW DAY COUNT & CLIP CARDS {free printable!}

 

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Color Sorting Hearts Busy Bag Pig Tails Color Sorting Teach Color Matching with Stickers Marshmallow Sort Fine Motor Jar Printable Watermelon Counting Cards
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Counting Hearts Busy Bag {free printable!}
Color Sorting Hearts Busy Bag

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