If you have been saving kleenex boxes but don’t know what to do with them, then here is a simple idea for turning those boxes into games for color sorting, counting, patterning, and anything else you can think of…
To prepare one kleenex box, simply attach an envelope to each side of the box. I used self-adhesive library pockets found at our local school supply store. They fit perfectly and keep the opening sitting upright…
For each pocket, I cut a sentence strip down to fit by length (the width already fit) and printed words on the sentence strips for the children to begin familiarizing themselves with. Some of my students already recognized many of their color or number words and others didn’t. Where I needed to add symbols next to the words, I added them…
Throughout our school year, we collect “math tokens” which are really just odds and ends the children collect from home to bring for our math time each week. As the year progresses, we collect quite a few math tokens so on different occasions, I sort the math tokens into our Kleenex boxes. How the math tokens are sorted depends on which words we are using to go with the tokens…
For simple counting and number word recognition, the children pull out the number words in the pockets of their Kleenex pockets and then reach in the box to pull out math tokens to count out the number of tokens represented on each card…
I made enough “Math Boxes” for each child to have one of their own and the children are encouraged to swap the boxes around with each other to see if they can find new number cards and new math tokens to explore…
Each math box has a different variety of math tokens inside which the children find interesting to examine and since the tokens all come from home, the children enjoy finding something familiar too…
After math time is over, the children scoop up all the math tokens and put them back in our boxes and I save the boxes for a new type of sorting, graphing, patterning, or other math skill…
We have also used the boxes for tracing and drawing…
Math box color sorting…
Math box color word sorting…
Lots of possibilities so start saving those Kleenex boxes!
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Our take home math bags by Teach Preschool
Simple math graphing by Teach Preschool
More ideas for Math on Pinterest