Kindergarten Number Match Activity

Want to make math fun? Try this Kindergarten Number Match!

Kids need to move in math. They need full body math. They need all of their senses involved with math. This Kindergarten Number Match activity checks so many boxes for making math fun.

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Math needs to be more than worksheets

Math gets a bad rap. It gets put on paper. It gets put in workbooks. It gets drilled into our kids in a manner that means the cycle will only continue: few love it and most hate it.

Isn’t that how it was for you? You learned about math from a teacher droning on in front of the classroom. You practiced math from a workbook or textbook. Your love of math (I’m guessing here) dwindled over the years. This was me too.

It’s why I set out on my educational path to make a change: to stop kids from hating math.

I wanted to instill a love of math that I didn’t get to have (and hopefully change my feelings on it in the process).

Math is a beautiful subject for our young learners – but it’s all about how we share it.

RELATED: I hate worksheets. I hate workbooks. Find out why here.

Get your child moving with Kindergarten Number Match

This activity specifically targets three Common Core State Standards for Kindergarten Math:

CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.A.3
Write numbers from 0 to 20. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-20 (with 0 representing a count of no objects).

CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.B.4
Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality.

CCSS.Math.Content.K.OA.A.3
Decompose numbers less than or equal to 10 into pairs in more than one way, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each decomposition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 5 = 2 + 3 and 5 = 4 + 1).

But let’s teach these kids ACTIVELY without sitting

Here’s the simple set up for the Kindergarten Number Match:

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• White butcher paper
• Large black marker
• Post-it notes
• Painter’s tape

The Set-up Directions

Roll our the white butcher paper and draw the numbers 1 – 10.

On sticky notes, make corresponding sets for each number: rewrite the number as a math problem, quantity, and word.

Hide the sticky notes (all 30 of them) around the room or house. Have your child run to find them.

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Get your kindergartener moving!

In this activity, the child is working with math in an ACTIVE way. They are ACTIVE in their body movements – no one is sitting at a desk here.

They are engaging their muscles as well as their brain to play the right sticky note on the right numeral.

RELATED: Is your child working on making 10? This is my favorite activity to practice!

The Kindergarten Number Match is so much more than a workbook!

And… unlike a workbook, this activity is NOT one and done. You can keep setting this up again and again until the sticky wears off those post-its.

My son (6) played this for almost a week straight. He’d set up the kindergarten number match for ME!

He also started adding in new number sentences to hide even more post-its.

Math doesn’t need to be still.

Engage your child with math that moves. Bring life back to math.

Help your child to interact with math in a way that was largely missing from our math educations (at least mine!).

Math can be a beautiful thing – we just need to think beyond the worksheet.

When will you set up a kindergarten number match?