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Counting hands: How many fingers?- Math Activity

Shamima Fowzee • 19 July 2022

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Counting hands: How many fingers?
This counting hands number learning activity is a fun and visual approach for your young child or preschooler to learn early numeracy. With this adorable counting hands craft, you can practice counting and basic numeracy. When children are learning to count, it is helpful to have hands on math tool to work with. Counting hands make a math activity fun and children can love fun activity counting on simple fingers.

Appropriate age: 3 years +
Number of children: Individual activity
Play based learning: Sensory play 
Learning areas: Cognitive Development, Language Development
Vocabulary: numbers, count, fingers, gloves, rice, dice.
Materials Needed:
  • Set of plastic gloves 
  • 1 bag rice for filling
  • Dice
  • Elastic bands

Direction for making making counting hands:
Lay the gloves filled with rice on the table and make sure that gloves will lay flat. You do not want to overfill them. 
Tie the bottom of the gloves with an elastic band so the rice doesn't fall out. Don't wrap the elastic band to tightly just yet. 

Let's count how many fingers?
Now that you have the rice gloves counting hands made you can work with them. Encourage the child to roll the die. When the dice lands. let the child count the dots and identify the number then the child has to fix the fingers on the gloves bending down the correct number fingers to match the number from the flashcard and dots from the dies.

Health and safety:
You will need to test out the fingers to make sure that they will be able to folded backwards when you are trying to count. You don't want them to be too floppy or too rigid. when you have them just as you want them, make sure the elastic bands are looped tightly.

We used gloves that are rather thin. You may want to put one pair of gloves into another to make them thicker. It will make the rice harder to see, but keep the rice in gloves.

Hints and tips:
This activity can be used for addition and subtraction.

What other math activities can you think of to do with this counting hands?
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