First to 12- a Halloween Counting and Number Recognition Activity

If you have been reading the blog lately or following us on Instagram, you know we have been loving these spiders and bats! After a summer filled with morning sickness that lasted well into the evening, we were ready for a refresh of some easy activities. I’m not usually a Halloween enthusiast, but these little figurines were just the ticket to get us back in the groove of fun and easy activities for the kids. I like to get a lot of use out of anything we purchase, so these creatures have definitely gotten some good use.

Today’s activity is super easy and includes a lot of learning! Read on to see just how easy this is to set up- you’ll get some fun number recognition and counting in while gearing up for Halloween!

Depending on the age of your children, this can be hands on or pretty hands off.

Here’s What You Need

• Muffin tin- this set of silicone pans are great for all sorts of activities.

• Bats

• Spiders (or use pom poms as a substitute if you have those on hand)

• Die (multiple dice for older kids)

Set up

1 minute

1. Gather your bats and spiders. We put all of them in one bowl to create more of a challenge and get practice with visual discrimination. For younger kids, keep them separate.

2. Take turns rolling the die and adding that many bats or spiders to your muffin tin- one per well. If you are using pom poms or beads, use different colors for more of a challenge or stick to all the same color for younger kids.

3. First one to twelve wins the game! We played several rounds and had a blast.

Clean Up

1-2 minutes

1. Put the spiders and bats into a bowl or other storage container and save for a different activity.

2. Put away the dice and muffin tins. We always put our muffin pan in the dishwasher so it is ready to go for our next activity. We borrow our dice from games, so we just put them back where they belong.

This was a great way to get some counting practice in, and we are working on subitizing with Vaila. This was a new-to-me term last year, but basically, it’s recognizing the number in a group with your eyes without having to count. It is a fantastic skill to practice in preparation for more complex math skills your child will learn later on, and honestly it makes games smoother with kids when they can recognize the pattern of 5 dots on a die without having to count each one on every single roll.

For younger kids, I would use basically the same set up but work together on a team in a sense. Roll the die, say the number out loud, then work together to add the correct number of bats to the muffin pan. Fine motor skills, counting, and quality time!

Older kids could benefit from using multiple dice and practicing addition or subtraction. Addition would definitely fill up the muffin pan quickly, but finding the difference between the dice and adding that number of bats would be a fun way to play. This could also be a fun multi-player game to set up for older kids that could be pretty hands off on your part.

I hope you get a chance to set up this ultra easy activity soon. The kids will love it and you will love the math practice and easy clean up! See my last post for more thoughts on this, but if you don’t have the desire to buy Halloween themed figures, use what you have at home!

I have a few more activities that will make an appearance on the blog featuring these bats and spiders, so check back!

Looking for other activities? Check these out:

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