preschool math centers – Mrs Mama Bird

Are you celebrating St. Patrick’s Day? This post will highlight the St. Patrick’s Day themed math activities I’ve created for preschoolers to enhance visual discrimination, sorting and classifying, counting, number identification, patterning, number matching, one to one correspondence and skip counting. This includes a Shamrock Sort and Classify FREEBIE. The link is at the bottom!

In case you’re like me and love to include fun literary connections in everything you do, I’m going to mention this sweet picture book, Ten Lucky Leprechauns. The illustrations are fun and the concept is simple – counting to ten. It works perfectly as a read aloud with preschoolers, especially to reinforce counting around St. Patrick’s Day.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the same and different cards I’ve created for St. Patrick’s Day. There are a total of 12 cards, each displaying 4 shamrocks. Three are alike and one is different. Students can practice identifying the different shamrock by covering up with a manipulative of some sort. You can use gold coins, green glass gems, or any other festive counter that you can fine. I used foam shamrocks from the dollar store.

The Shamrock Sort & Classify activity also encourages preschoolers to think about what is the same and what is different about the shamrocks. This set includes 15 different shamrocks representing 5 different sizes and 3 different patterns. I also created sorting mats for preschoolers to need that visual. The sorting mats will help preschoolers sort by size into small, medium or large groups. They can also help preschoolers sort by pattern into checkers, polka dots, or stripes. This resource is FREE in my shop and you can find the link at the bottom of this post.

Preschoolers can practice counting by locating different St. Patrick’s Day pictures throughout the room and counting the St. Patrick’s Day icons on each. Emmett enjoyed finding the different cards throughout the room and filling up his Count the Room recording sheet. There are 8 icon cards in all, and each shows a quantity of 1 – 8.

The Rainbow Number Find includes number cards 1 – 20 with a pot of gold theme. You can set them up in a sensory bin or a draw pile. Then have preschoolers find a number and trace the corresponding number on the Rainbow Number Find mat. There are two versions of the mat, 1 – 10 and 1 – 20, each in color or black and white.

For preschoolers who are working on counting as well as one to one correspondence, grid games are so helpful and fun. Simply print the game board and gather a dice and some counters. I used plastic gold coins from the dollar store. Have your kiddos roll the dice, then add that many counters to the board, one on each square. Help them count as they go! There are two different versions of the game, one with 20 and one with 30 pots of gold.

Next is another dice game! The Shamrock Roll and Cover is a simple way to practice subitizing and number recognition. Have your preschoolers roll the dice and cover the number they land on. They can play with partners or independently.

Emmett and I played this one together and he really enjoyed it. We used the 7 – 12 mat and I was able to use a blank foam cube that I had in my stash of supplies. I just wrote numbers 7 – 12 on it with a sharpie. You can also use 2 dice, but make sure one stays on the number six and the other one gets rolled.

Another activity you can use these adorable number cards for is the St. Patrick’s Day Tens Frame Mats. Make the cards available, either in a sensory bin or draw pile, and have your preschoolers practice representing each number with counters in a tens frame. I used my plastic gold coins again for this one, but any counters will work. There is a mat for up to 10 and a mat for up to 20.

The St. Patrick’s Day pattern mats can be used as a full page or cut into pattern strips. The patterns include AB, ABC, ABB, and AAB. Preschoolers can use the little picture cards to complete the different patterns. If you have Velcro Dots, you could use those to help the pictures stay in place.

Emmett was so excited to show me what he knew about patterns. There’s also a blank pattern sheet included for those preschoolers that are ready to make their own patterns. Emmett got right to work on the blank sheet as soon as he finished the fill-in-the-blanks sheets.

The final St. Patrick’s Day preschool math activity I’d like to show you is all the puzzles I created. The first set includes 20 sets of two piece puzzles. One piece has a number and the other piece has a quantity, all St. Patrick’s Day themed. Preschoolers can take turns matching these or connect them independently if they are ready.

The second set of puzzles include numbers and pictures. Once you cut these puzzles into strips, students can use the pattern (counting or skip counting) to help them put the St. Patrick’s Day pictures back together. The puzzles are tiered so that you can differentiate for your students. They include counting 1 – 3, 1 – 4, 1 – 5, 6 – 10, 11 – 20 and skip counting by 2s and 10s.

Emmett is 5 and is getting ready to start kindergarten in the fall, so he chose to practice counting from 11 – 20 and by 10s. I did have to tell him what number each puzzle started with so that he could get started. But after that, he was good to go!

I hope you were able to find some inspiration for your little learners! If you are interested in downloading these paid and free resources from my shop, click the icons below. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!