Counting Fun with Puff Balls

These two activities need similar supplies so I included them in the same posts.

Little plug for IKEA... I love their kids dishes for utility uses but also for learning. These are two activities in which I use the dishes but you could probably use any colored dishes.

First Activity)- Color Toss

Objective: Students will learn at different learning levels easily covering vocabulary such as colors, counting, and comparing with more or less. LOVE FOR MULTIPLE LEVEL LEARNERS!

For this activity you will need a set of IKEA bowls or cups and puff balls of matching colors from walmart. Oh and we use a cookie sheet or cake pan to contain play (optional).

 Step 1.) Separate Puff Balls into piles for each player.

 Step 2.) Set up boundaries. We like to use the piano bench and pretend there are lasers on the legs that will  cut off little kids arms if they cross them, but a simple line on the floor would work too.

Step 3. ) Have fun throwing puff balls into the matching colored bowl or cup and do not allow them to change where the balls land till the end.

Step 4.) Take each bowl individually and pick out the matching colored puff balls. We like to line them up so we can count them and easily compare amounts of correct colors. We also like to designate a place for the colors that landed in the wrong bowl or outside of a bowl and make a big deal saying, "TRASH!!" as we place a puff ball in the pile.

Step 5.) We continue to line up the colors and compare amounts til every color is finished. Sometimes we take it a step further and count how many we got right compared to the trash to see if we "WON". This helps practice the larger number sequence.

Step 6.) Depending on kids attention and excitement we will leave the correct puff balls in their line and redo throwing the Trash pile. Again you can compare second round puff balls with the first round puff balls. Just keep finding reasons to use the words... (More, Most, Least, Greatest, Smallest, Fewest,and Equal)

Second Activity)- Easter Egg Addition

Objective: Students will focus on simple addition. BUT I LOVE THIS ACTIVITY IN ORDER TO TEACH ADDING ZERO!

I created this activity when I noticed my kids couldn't quite figure out what adding zero meant. In this activity you treat zero as a quantity and go through all the steps. Which seems silly but really helps them realize what adding zero does to a quantity. 

You will need Easter eggs, , puff balls, egg carton (for easy storage) some IKEA bowls and a plate. 

 Step 1.) First I fill puff balls into the Easter eggs in different quantities. and then hide them in one room. 

 Step 2.) I have one bowl for each child at the table and one plate in front of me. The kids each go find one egg and bring it back to the table. 

 Step 3.) They "crack" the egg into their bowl and count the number of puff balls. When they get the number right the child gives me that number of high fives. For example two puff balls= two high fives. If they had zero puff balls we pretend we are going to give a high five and then miss at the end declaring, "ZERO!" That really helps the kids not be sad when they get the number zero. 

Step 4.) Each child dumps their cracked egg (puff balls in the bowl) onto the plate and I scramble it all up. And we together count the sum. 

Step 5.) The kids then have to give each other the sum quantity of high fives before they go search for another egg. 

*My kids love this game, and after the first round I let them refill the eggs with as many puff balls as they want. And they always want a ton! So second round is always more difficult but they love that they made it so hard and get a good kick out of finding a mother load of puff balls.