Preschool Math Activities & Worksheets PDF
As an undergraduate and during three years of graduate school, I prepared math activities for my preschool class by weaving math concepts into many of our activities, such as art, rug time, reading time, and outdoor time. A favorite preschool math and science activity was combining playdough with science, such as making insects and zoo animals, and counting them. Linked below is an insect-themed preschool math activity and worksheets PDF.
These early math awareness and skills activities work best through play and real objects children can touch and move. Number sense and number recognition are usually the first concepts preschoolers begin to understand. Counting blocks, lining up toy animals, or counting steps while climbing the stairs all help children learn an important idea called one-to-one correspondence—each object gets one number as we count. Simple activities like this is number 1 to 1 correspondence printable is an excellent preschool math activity. That kind of curiosity is the perfect doorway into early math. These, along with a few hands-on toys and manipulatives (like the ones I’ve shared below), make learning feel like play.
Another simple preschool math counting activity is the one pictured here. Gather some playdough, wooden skewers, and rigatoni. Use the linking cubes counting printable below or the number cards in the pumpkin patch math activities PDF, and ask your child to place the corresponding number of pasta pieces onto the wooden skewer. Then, have them count how many they placed. Does it match the number on the card/paper?
Combining a math activity with literacy, art, or music is an engaging way to “double-dip”, This beach letter and number sorting activity from 3 Dinosaurs gives preschool and kindergarten learners a hands-on way to work on letter and number recognition while building sorting and fine motor skills at the same time. Whether you use it as a summer learning activity, a math and literacy center, or tuck it into an ocean unit study, it’s an easy low-prep activity kids will enjoy.
Fingerplays and music are other ways to introduce and reinforce counting and number sense. Fingerplays like:
- 5 Little Monkeys
- The Ants Go Marching
- 5 Little Ducks
- One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
- Johnny Works with One Hammer
- Seasonal fingerplays – We used to do 5 little pumpkins sitting on a fence and 5 little snowflakes falling from the sky. (I’d also combine it with a felt board. I have linked a felt board below. This was one of my favorite teaching tools for preschool.
- Make up your own! What does your toddler love–trucks, dogs, cats, farm animals, make up your own! Use Canva to printout some animals, cut them out, Velcro them to a flannel board. (You can make your own flannel board with material and cardboard to keep it on a budget.)
Preschool math also includes several other foundational skills. Children begin noticing shapes like circles and squares, comparing sizes such as big and small, and sorting objects by color or type. They start to recognize patterns, practice matching, and develop early spatial awareness as they build and arrange toys. These playful explorations build the groundwork for later math learning, helping children understand quantity, relationships, and numbers in ways that feel natural and engaging.
Below I have listed our free printables that accompany hands-on activities and/or manipulatives.
I’ve also listed some fun interactive toys and books I have used with preschool ages (18 months to 4 years). Some of these are Amazon Affiliate links, I do earn a very small commission which helps me keep resources free. Thank you!
Preschool Math Activities and Worksheet PDF ‘s
Below are our free preschool math activities and worksheet PDFs. All of our math printables are sponsored by CTCMath. When you request one of the math resources, you will be added to the CTCMath email community.
Preschool Math Recommended Resources
Below are some of the preschool and Kindergarten products we have used for our own children or grandchildren or are using in our library of free preschool math activity PDF’s.
- Math…
- Schoo…
- Monte…
- Count…
- NUMBE…
- Color Sorting…
- Preschool…
- Counting…
- Montessori…
- Perfect Gift…
- Explore…
- Magnetic…
- Montessori…
- Premium…
- Perfect…
- Interesting…
- Wooden…
- Easy to…
- Sturdy and…
- Perfect Gift…
There is so much you can do with simple blocks! These have numbers, upper and lower case letters, and an image to go with the letter. The number 1 is the letter A/a, and has an apple image. The letter L has L/l, has the number 12, and an image of a lion…and so on. We put all the letter sides up on a flat surface, then all the picture sides up, then all the uppercase letters up. We built towers and pyramids. We built put them in the cars of the number train listed next. There is just so much you can do with these.
The Match’n Roll train from Play Act is another very versatile toy. The train cars have numbers but there are also the corresponding amount of dots on each of the car covers. So, not only can your child practice counting the cars, but also the dots on each car. The animals are finger puppets and, of course, are fun for creating stories! One feature I really like about this train is that once the cars are hooked together, they stay hooked! You can easily take them apart, but your child can carry the train around, and it won’t fall apart.
I hold a master’s degree in child development and early education and am working on a post-baccalaureate in biology. I spent 15 years working for a biotechnology company developing IT systems in DNA testing laboratories across the US. I taught K4 in a private school, homeschooled my children, and have taught on the mission field in southern Asia. For 4 years, I served on our state’s FIRST Lego League tournament Board and served as the Judging Director. I own thehomeschoolscientist and also write a regular science column for Homeschooling Today Magazine. You’ll also find my writings on the CTCMath blog. Through this site, I have authored over 50 math and science resources.