Do you find your kids are counting down the minutes until math class ends or math homework is done? Give them a reason to celebrate math! International Math Day, also known as Pi Day (3.14), is celebrated on March 14 and highlights the importance of math in everyday life. It’s also a perfect reason to make good use of the season.
Springtime provides rich seasonal themes surrounding seeds, flowers, insects, and the weather. It’s only natural that spring-themed, hands-on math activities are especially engaging and effective for kindergarten to third-grade students.
Drawing on multiple senses to make math come alive can create a 180 in a child’s attitude toward math—let’s call it math-itude. Join us in exploring ways to make it happen! This post offers easy ideas for parents and teachers to build number sense through playful, multi-sensory activities.
Why number sense is important
The phrase “number sense” refers to understanding the connections between numbers and real-world tasks. It includes things like doing mental math to add, subtract, multiply, and divide; using numbers for telling time and counting money; estimating, measuring, and comparing values; understanding quantities; and recognizing number patterns (order, place value, number families, and how numbers relate to one another). These skills and abilities should eventually become flexible and intuitive, virtually second nature. Kids learn what numbers represent, and not just how to calculate answers.
Practice builds number sense, and hands-on activities make practice fun. In “Top 10 Benefits of Hands-On Learning: Why It Works,” SmartLab notes, “Hands-on activities stimulate curiosity and encourage exploration, leading to a more dynamic and enthusiastic classroom atmosphere.” They add that “Experiencing a concept firsthand strengthens memory retention. When students engage multiple senses — touch, sight, hearing — they form stronger neural connections related to the material.”
Here are just a few of the benefits of having strong number sense:
• When students understand how numbers work and relate to each other, they become better at mental math and problem-solving of many kinds. In turn, this makes them quicker and more confident in problem-solving and decision-making and less vulnerable to mistakes of many kinds.
• Children with good number sense enjoy playing with and exploring numbers and number relationships. As a result, they can often find the most efficient solution to problems and embrace math challenges, possibly one day even influencing career choices. After all, the “M” in STEM stands for math.
• Early number sense forms the basis for more advanced skills and higher-level math. Again, success and confidence at one level help produce the same results at the next level, resulting in academic success and a satisfying sense of accomplishment.
Counting and Number Sense Activities
Below are easy springtime activities that use seasonally-themed materials to strengthen basic number sense, counting, and one-to-one correspondence, which refers to one object representing one number, using spring-themed materials. Activities that get kids counting and connecting quantities and numbers build and reinforce number sense. All the better when combined with getting outside and observing and “touching” nature! These math adventures even make great spring math activities for kindergarten.
• Nature Walks: Use outdoor walks to practice tallying and/or playing counting games. Count specific items like birds, cars, stones, sticks, or flowers, using a notepad to make tally marks.
• Number Matching: Use natural materials or plastic eggs and have kids pair the correct quantity with the corresponding number on a card, reinforcing their number sense, counting skills, and number recognition in a hands-on, playful way.
• Ladybug Spots: Use ladybug spots to introduce simple counting. This helps children recognize numbers and improve their counting skills. Here is an adorable Ladybug Spot Counting Worksheet and other ladybug activities from Twinkl. Manipulating cards, placing counters, or even creating their own ladybugs deepens kids’ engagement and strengthens fine motor skills along with math skills.
• Skip Counting/Group or Set Counting: For second and third graders, extend the counting to higher numbers or try skip counting by 2s, 3s, 4s, or 5s. Also, try arranging objects in groups. Ask them to count the number in each group and add the two numbers together. Then count the total one by one to double-check the answer.
Addition and Subtraction with a Spring Twist
Adding spring-time objects and references to any addition or subtraction activity can make it feel new and right-now.
Here are a few simple springtime activities to build early math skills:
• Seasonal Story Problems: Practice adding and subtracting through playful, spring-themed problems. For example, see these Free Spring Word Problems from Miss Kindergarten, which reference plants, butterflies, and rainy days! Or take any story problem and swap out the featured objects with seasonal references.
• Worm Addition/Subtraction: Use brown pipe cleaners ("worms") or pom-poms as counters on number lines to visually add or subtract, particularly within 0-20. You can also again use flower petals, seeds, or plastic eggs to follow a spring theme.
• Math Spinner Activities: Use a paperclip and pencil as a spinner to generate addition/subtraction facts within 20 or 10, depending on age, making practice interactive. In this YouTube video, a teacher shows how to use a spinner and a ten-frame to practice “take away.” Or check out this Spring Flower Spin and Subtract within 20 Worksheet from Twinkl. (Note: spinner charts can also work for vocabulary games!)
• Flower Shop: Addition/subtraction games with pretend money build number sense while also teaching early money management skills. By using pretend money, price tags, and order forms, children can role-play as florists and customers, making math tangible and fun.
Spring Time Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are all about discovery, creative thought, problem-solving, and looking at things from a different perspective, all of which are fundamental in mathematics. Ideally, scavenger hunts are team activities, whether with classmates or family members. But they can easily keep a single child entertained--and learning. Settings can include home, school, school grounds, a park, a historic site, or within a city block or neighborhood.
You can ask players to find (and count) “all the ___ in a certain area,” objects with specific geometric shapes (circles, circles inside other circles, triangles, squares, etc.), a group of similar things, or a group of something ordered by size (i.e., shortest to tallest plant or smallest to biggest flower).
Here are how-tos for a Mathematics Scavenger Hunt intended to celebrate International Mathematics Day. Or create your own to fit your class, surroundings, and age group.
Patterns & Sequences in Spring
The season when so many things are waking up makes it easy to introduce pattern recognition, sequencing, and number relationships using spring-themed activities. As Teaching Mama notes, “Completing patterns is an important skill for preschoolers and kindergarteners to work on. Learning this skill will build the foundation to learn harder math skills later on.”
Here are a few ways to practice:
• Complete the Pattern: Ask kids to look at a pattern in play (ABAB, ABC, AABB, or AAB) and then continue it. These Free Printable Flower Strips from Teaching Mama make it fun, easy, and spring-timey. For example, an ABAB pattern would be red flower, green flower, red flower, green flower, etc. What comes next? Find other online resources to print out or make your own pattern activity.
• Plant Growth Sequences: This involves ordering 4-6 stages: seed, germination (root/shoot), seedling, and adult plant. Math is integrated through measuring plant height weekly, using bar charts to track growth, and sequencing events in order, such as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. See worksheets for measuring plant growth from Twinkl. Or check out Anywhere Teacher, School Zone’s online learning program for ages 2-8. Among its life cycle videos is one about an apple tree.
• Completing a Number Line: Though not spring-specific, this activity helps children to learn where numbers are in order in a pattern. Use this Filling in Missing Numbers on a Number Line to 20 Worksheet, again from Twinkl. And here is a 0-10 spring-themed number line from the same source. Random numbers could be covered up to let kids fill in. Number lines strengthen, reinforce, and test a child's understanding of number order, sequencing, and mathematical fluency.
Spring into math learning
Here is an equation you can count on: International Math Day + spring activities = fun, meaningful math experiences. Hands-on, spring math activities help preschoolers and school-aged kids practice number sense, patterns, and problem-solving. Whether you present spring-themed story problems, create a counting or pattern recognition game using materials from nature, or toss a few pipe cleaner “worms” into math lessons, you’ll be building number sense and showing kids that math can be fun.
And combining digital, printable, and outdoor learning ensures engagement and a sense of adventure. Visit School Zone for a wide range of math resources and Anywhere Teacher to discover 3000+ activities that include hundreds of math activities as well as nature and science-based options like Exploring Nature videos and space, weather, insects, and dinosaur flash cards.
