Christmas Addition Activities for Preschool
Looking for engaging ways to teach early math skills this holiday season? These Christmas addition activities are perfect for introducing basic math concepts while keeping preschool math activities fun and hands-on.
By combining some holiday spirit with educational play, preschoolers can practice counting, simple addition, and number recognition in ways that feel different yet meaningful. Make these counting and addition activities a part of your Christmas-themed lessons!
These Christmas addition mats are a fun and interactive way to introduce preschoolers to early math skills during the holiday season. They have quickly become one of the best preschool Christmas activities to date!
Featuring familiar holiday designs, these mats allow children to practice counting and basic addition by creating a wreath of poinsettias. There are several levels of math skills that can be taught using this freebie, including:
- number recognition
- one to one correspondence
- conservation of number
- cardinality
- addition
And this is all done with a single printable! Gotta’ love a free Christmas math activity that can target so many skills in the classroom. You can easily level up or down based on the needs of your preschoolers.
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Addition For Preschool
It might surprise you, but many preschoolers are very capable of completing simple addition tasks by Christmas time. If they have mastered one-to-one correspondence in counting, then they are ready to start solving simple addition problems. Addition falls under the math domain of number sense.
With these Christmas math mats, preschool and kinder students can actually practice both counting and simple addition! They pick a number (or addition) card and then add the corresponding number of poinsettia flowers on the wreath.
What makes this printable a great kindergarten math activity is that the poinsettia cards feature 1-3 blooms on each card, so it teaches more advanced students how to make different combinations in the addition sentences. It makes quick work of learning math facts, too.
Read our Ultimate Guide on Teaching Preschool Addition.
Christmas Addition Activities
When Christmas rolls around, I can’t help but go all out with my Christmas preschool lesson plans. We do Christmas all December long, and sometimes even a little after, too!
This post may contain affiliate links, which means that at no cost to you, I may earn a small sum if you click through and make a purchase.
What You Get
These Christmas addition printables are perfect for developing number sense! This printable includes number mats, addition sentences, and number cards up to 12. This math set can be used for one to one correspondence, addition, and number identification.
Additional Materials
- 2.5 inch circle punch (optional)
The Set Up
Just print this fun Christmas math activity in color on heavy cardstock. Cut out the addition sentences and the number cards, and separate them into piles. You can use a 2.5 inch circle punch to cut out the poinsettia cards, too.
Laminate the wreath mat for added durability. Then invite your preschool or kindergarten students to join you in some fun Christmas counting and addition activities for kids.
Try out these other Christmas Number Identification Activities, too!
How to Use Christmas Counting and Addition Mats
There are a couple of ways to use these mats to teach addition to your preschooler or kindergartener. This way, you can add these to your math centers at Christmas time and know that you have a single printable that can serve students at multiple skill levels.
Math Activity: Teach One to One Correspondence
Use these mats as traditional counting mats by using the smaller numbers in the set. Have your student select a number card, and then use the poinsettia cards to create that number.
Your youngest learners are naturally going to select two single poinsettia cards to create the number two, where each card represents a “one” in “one-to-one” correspondence.
Math Activity: Teaching Cardinality
Cardinality in preschool refers to a child’s understanding that the last number they say when counting a set of objects represents the total quantity of that set. And, this is true no matter how the items are organized, which is a really important concept for preschoolers to learn.
To teach cardinality, challenge your students to figure out another way to use the flower cards to make the same number. See the photo below.
Instead of choosing two individual cards with one poinsettia each, they chose one card with two poinsettias on it. This is a simple example, seeing the the number two only has a few combinations, but students will be challenged even more by attempting larger numbers, like in the activity below.
While this form of counting will take some practice, it’s a fantastic skill for even your preschoolers to try. This is what addition in preschool looks like in the beginning! And preschoolers are 100% capable of this kind of addition.
In the photo above, you can see that the number eight can be made up of 1+1+1+1+2+2. Now, this is not what a student is thinking when they create that combination. Rather, they might just count the flowers until the reach eight.
Christmas Math Activity: Teach Addition
This activity is perfect for preschoolers and kindergarten students who have a firm grasp on one-to-one correspondence and counting on.
Set aside the number cards and offer the addition sentence cards. Have your student select one for the mat, and then invite them to copy the sentence by using the poinsettia cards to represent the numbers in the addition sentence.
Here is another example.
These mats only feature addition sentences with sums up to six. When children are first learning addition they need to work with quantities with which they are very comfortable and knowledgeable. This helps eliminate possible mistakes that can occur while learning a new math skill.
Check out this big list of Christmas Preschool Math Activities.
Christmas Addition Activities for Kindergarten
These addition activities may be appropriate for preschoolers, too. Take a look!
- Christmas Addition Cards
- Christmas Addition Coloring Sheets
- Christmas Tree Addition Puzzles
- Christmas Tree Addition Mats
- Addition Activities for Preschoolers
Get Your Christmas Addition Mats Here
Think these free printable addition mats are something you want to add to your Christmas theme math centers this holiday season? Just fill out the form below and they will be sent to your inbox!
Christmas Math Books for Preschoolers
One of my favorite ways to connect Christmas math activities with the season is to read Christmas counting books with my preschoolers. Here are my favs.
- Sobotka, Amanda (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 24 Pages – 10/18/2022 (Publication Date) – Applesauce Press (Publisher)
- Sobotka, Amanda (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 24 Pages – 10/24/2023 (Publication Date) – Applesauce Press (Publisher)
- Sobotka, Amanda (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 20 Pages – 10/08/2024 (Publication Date) – Applesauce Press (Publisher)
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.
