6 Winter Math Activities for Preschoolers
As winter arrives and the temperature drops, it can be difficult to keep preschoolers engaged in a lesson plan – especially when it comes to math activities. Fortunately, with just a little creativity you can use this cooler time of year to take your classroom’s learning experience up a notch while helping kids explore the fundamentals of mathematics.
Try these printable winter themed preschool math activities!
Winter abounds with possibilities for preschoolers! From delightful winter crafts to fascinating fine motor activities and engaging sensory play, there’s no limit to the exciting winter adventures that await.
A winter theme in preschool can be really special and memorable.
Spend the winter creating magical memories with charming printables featuring furry friends dressed in their finest! From cozy scarves to warm knit mittens, these adorable animals are ready for fun-filled days sledding and snowman building.
These six winter activities for preschoolers and just too cute and a must-have in your winter preschool lesson plans.
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Winter Preschool Centers$8.00
Winter isn’t just a time for building snowmen and drinking hot cocoa, it’s also the time where teachers are gauging how much their preschool classes know in the five disciplines in math, which are:
On the outset, these disciplines don’t look age appropriate, but early childhood experts are consistently emphasizing their importance in preschool.
Winter Activities for Teaching Math to Preschoolers
These preschool math games and hands on math activities are printable so you can add to your winter preschool centers, and best of all, the six printables also cover all five disciplines of math in a fun, engaging, and age appropriate way.
Winter is already a magical time of year, but your winter lesson plans aren’t complete without these winter math activities for preschoolers and kindergarteners.
With all the planning we put into making our winter theme even more special, we don’t need to spend extra time worrying about our math and literacy centers. These six printable math activities use our favorite winter icons and make learning math fun for preschoolers.
Snowman Counting Mats (Number Sense)
Set in a snow-blanketed, wintery forest, these little snowmen are smiling and ready for some winter counting fun! Preschoolers start by practicing number identification by reading the numeral and each mat. Then, they count all the smiling snowmen.
Finally, preschoolers get to practice counting to ten in three more ways: reading dice, counting fingers, and also counting tally marks! These cards can be used for teaching subitizing, too!
Snowman Playdough Shape Mats (Geometry)
When preschoolers build their own snowmen, it seems like they come in all shapes and sizes. So do these shape playdough mats. You could also call them winter fine motor shape mats, too. Preschoolers start by identifying the shape of the snowman face. They can trace the shape with their finger.
The best part of these mats is rolling out the playdough to create a shape. Rolling balls of playdough really works their fine motor skills. If you’re not into playdough, then use any small manipulative to form the shape. Try glass floral pebbles, acrylic snowflakes, or large plastic gems.
Winter Friends Mark and Sort (Algebra)
This has to be one of the most creative printables for teaching sorting skills, and so life applicable, too! There are actually two activities in one here.
First, preschoolers select a winter friends card and identify what winter clothing the friend is wearing, and mark the card accordingly. You can keep these cards in a dry erase pouch or laminate them. Then, the cards can be sorted onto mats and counted. Not all winter friends are wearing the same winter clothing!
Math discipline: algebra. Math skills: sorting, comparing, classifying, visual discrimination.
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Winter Preschool Centers$8.00
Winter Fun Measurement Mats (Measurement)
Measuring height, length, and weight in non-standard units is just one component of measuring skills in preschool, as well as recognizing quantities that are more and less. These winter friends measuring mats meet both standards. Preschoolers can use any non-standard measurement manipulative to measure the different heights on the mat.
Winter Friends Color Roll & Graph (Data Analysis)
Preschoolers get to practice lots of visual discrimination with this graphing activity. Choose one of the two dice to play. Roll the die and take a close look at the winter friend rolled. This is a great visual discrimination task! Preschoolers look for what colors the friend is wearing and then add a token to the graph for each and every color the winter friend is wearing.
For example, one fox is wearing green, yellow, blue, and red, so each of those colors would be graphed for that roll. (The color of the fur or feathers do not get graphed).
Juggling Snowman Composing Ten Addition Mats
This activity is similar to other composing ten activities on my site, but taken one step further. Ideally, you would use double sided color counters with this activity, or at least two colors of playdough.
Preschoolers pour out a total of ten counters onto a tray and count how many fall to red versus another color. Move the red counters to the snowballs the snowman is juggling. Find the corresponding numeral card and place it in the empty box on the left side of the mat. Repeat with the second color of counters on the right side of the mat.
Now your preschooler can create a visual of all the ways to compose ten.
Children’s Books All About Winter
Introduce your preschoolers to the wonderful world of winter through cozy storytime! With dimmed lights, fuzzy blankets, and a cuddly friend by their side, young readers will be captivated as they dive into magical stories about frosty snowflakes and blistering blizzards.
Whether it’s discovering hidden treasures in an ice-covered land or embarking on snowy adventures with brave animal friends – this book-list has fun reading for every child in search of winter wonderland delights.
- Henkes, Kevin (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 40 Pages – 11/03/2020 (Publication Date) – Greenwillow Books (Publisher)
- Jackson, Ellen (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 32 Pages – 08/01/2003 (Publication Date) – First Avenue Editions ™ (Publisher)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Brydon, Alli (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Donovan, Jane Monroe (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Obeng, Tiffany (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
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Winter Preschool Centers$8.00
Get All Your Winter Math Printables Here
Think these math activities are a must-have for your winter preschool theme? Grab them below!
Winter Art Activities for Your Winter Themed Lesson Plans
From building a snowman with cotton balls to working scissor skills, these are must-do art activities to add to your preschool winter lesson plans.
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.