Here are 3 games that you can use to teach your preschooler sorting and counting over the weekend.

Jumbo Counting

• Take a brown paper lunch bag, and fold down the opening of the bag so there’s a large opening.
• Cut out a picture of an elephant’s head and paste or staple it to the top of the lunch bag.
• Take a bunch of index cards, and write a number on each.
• Fill a bowl with peanuts (use the real variety, or if you don’t have any at home, look through old cartons and moving boxes for the other kind of peanuts - the packaging peanut shape material that’s used to cushion stuff while moving.
• Keep the cards face down on the table, and ask her to pick one.
• Ask her to use a clothes peg to feed the elephant the number of peanuts specified in the card.
• Vary with other animals and their foods -bunnies with carrots, chimps and bananas etc.

Counting with Food Buckets

• Don’t throw away food buckets – collect and store till you have ten of of them.
• Arrange the 10 buckets in a row on the table, and attach them to each other with a clothes peg so they stay in line.
• Write a number on each bucket including all numerals from 1-10. The numbered buckets shouldn’t be in a numerical order.
• Give her a large basket with 55 items. These should preferably be similar, to help her focus on the counting, and not get distracted by the variety of items. Use clothes pegs, or throw all the spoons you have in the house in the basket. If it’s tough getting 55 items of the same kind, just use whatever is available around the house.
• Ask your child to place items in the bucket, depending on the number written on the bucket.
• Have a bucket with the number “0” written on it. This is the right time to teach her that nothing goes into the “zero” bucket because zero means “none.”

Sorting Socks and Mittens

Give your child an assortment of socks and mittens of various sizes, colors and patterns. Ask her to sort these by color, size and pattern. Let her arrange the socks in order from the smallest.

Enjoy!