10 Best Math Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

The toddler and preschool age is where a child gets their love of learning and where they create the building blocks upon which they’ll build their education and life skills. Which is why it’s so important to nurture their emotional, physical, and intellectual development early on.

With that in mind, we understand that there are concepts that are too complex for these little minds. When we talk about preschool and toddler mathematics, we aren’t talking about adding 1 and 2 together – we’re talking about patterns, basic counting, and other areas that will help your child grasp the basic concepts of math that they will need in preschool and school. 

We’ve put together a list of some of the best math games for toddlers and preschoolers for you, to help you build your child’s mathematical skills and thinking from an early age. 

Math Activities For Infants And Toddlers

These are some of our favourite math activities for 2 year olds and older! 

1. Rubber Duck Math Race for Preschoolers

This is a super fun game that will help your child learn to read the numbers on a die, along with learning how to count in sequence. Grab your favourite rubber ducks and some toy tiles. Have your toddler roll the die and then build a path for the duck with the amount of tiles the die lands on. This is a really effective way of teaching math to toddlers.

2. Ice Cream Math Activity for Toddlers 

There are few things more fun than ice cream, even if it is pretend! Cut out some triangles out of brown paper to represent your ‘cones’ and write the numbers 1 to 4 on them. On the first cone, have your toddler take some kitchen tongs, pick up 1 pompom (to correspond with that cone), on the second, he/she should pick up 2 pompoms and so on and so forth. 

This is brilliant for their counting skills and their fine motor skills! 

3. Number Puzzle Math Activity for Toddlers

Number puzzles are surprisingly easy to create. Simply write a number on one side of a piece of paper, draw a zigzag, and the corresponding amount of dots on the other side of the paper and then cut the two pieces out. 

Encourage your child to match the number, to the correct amount of dots. This is an incredibly simple way of learning math for toddlers. If you feel like building onto it, get your toddler to find other objects around the house and place them on the dots.

4. Measuring Volume Math Activity for Toddlers

Did you know that your kitchen makes a brilliant math lab for practicing mathematics activities for toddlers? It does! 

With all those measuring jugs, cups and spoons, your child has a world of measurements at their fingertips – this is such a great way of teaching math to toddlers. Practice measuring out rice, flour, cereal – anything you can get your hands on. You can then work up to discuss addition and volume. 

Why not get them to help you make dinner tonight? A simple act of measuring the rice and pouring into the empty pan can be enthralling for a child! And you have your very own sous chef at your hands! 

5. Counters and Measuring Math Activity for Preschoolers

Counters, blocks and lego pieces make for fantastic math helpers! Have your child draw around his/her feet and hands, and then count how many pieces long they are! 

To make it more fun, have the whole family join in! How many legos long is Daddy’s foot?

6. How Much Does It Weigh? Math Activity for Preschoolers

STEM activities are becoming more popular and rightly so! This STEM activity focuses on teaching your child that weight can be measured. 

Let them guess which objects weigh more or less than the others before starting the activity. A simple set of toy scales will help the way. Let them add items (coins, lego pieces etc) to either side and see which is heavier!

7. Giant Shape Match Math Activity for Toddlers 

Trying to tire them out? It’s ok, we know that sometimes it’s necessary! But why not make it a math activity at the same time! 

Get a ‘giant’ piece of paper and tape it to the floor (we suggest painter’s tape to avoid damage to the floors!). Find lots of different shapes and blocks and draw around them. Have your child crawl around the floor and place each block into its corresponding shape! 

Even better, get them to tell you the name of the shape as they match them! 

8. Marshmallow Challenge Math Activity for Toddlers 

This math activity comes with a different challenge – not eating the apparatus! Grab yourself some marshmallows, different sizes (and colours if you’re feeling fun!) and some toothpicks. 

Make sure this is always monitored, as children can hurt themselves on the toothpicks, but let them have fun building whatever they want to build with the marshmallows and toothpicks. This is a great game to learn mathematics for toddlers.

It’s great for their creativity, fine motor skills, and mathematics skills!  

9. Nature Pattern Math Activity for Toddlers

If you’re in need of some fresh air, a simple walk outside could help your child build their mathematics skills. 

Patterns are everywhere. Help them recognise patterns and perhaps bring some nature home with you to discuss the patterns you’ve seen! 

10. Toddler math activity: snowball math game

What child doesn’t love throwing things around the house? Well, grab some dryer balls, cotton wool or ball pit balls, some big containers (laundry baskets work brilliantly) and some enthusiasm!

Tape an easy sum (1+1) or numbers to the laundry baskets and have them throw the right amount of balls into the baskets! This is one of our favourite counting games for toddlers.

Mathematics Activities for Toddlers

Learning basic mathematical concepts starts from very young, so it’s important to keep working at helping your child build this foundation. Remember not to over-complicate things when teaching math to toddlers and keep things on their level: patterns, measuring and basic counting are perfect for the preschool brain. 

Remember to be creative and use what you can around the house and outside! There’s no reason to have to buy additional resources when teaching your little one. But, most importantly, have fun! Your child will pick up on your enthusiasm for mathematics.

Of course, if you’ve exhausted this list of activities, why not go for a holistic educational experience and download our app! Have fun with Woof and Joy as they explore and experience the world!