Christmas Math Game with Jingle Bells

This simple Christmas math game was inspired by last year’s geoboard Christmas trees, as well as And Next Comes L’s threading bells activity. Based on the preschoolers’ reactions, it was a hit!

Use jingle bells as part of a fun Christmas math game!

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Materials
Styrofoam trees
Red and green bells
Flat toothpicks
Red and green dice

How we played
1. One child rolled her die, then added the appropriate amount of bells to her tree.

2. The next child rolled his die, adding the correct amount of bells to his tree.

3. The first person to “decorate” her tree was the winner. I noticed each child like finishing up his tree, even if he came in second.

Other ways to play
This Christmas math game can easily be changed to incorporate different objectives. Using two dice each would allow for teaching about addition and subtraction. Use numeral cards instead of dice if you want the focus to be on number recognition.

Let the children simply add the bells to the tree if you’d rather the only focus be fine motor skills. My students loved doing this after they’d played the math game a few times!

The learning involved
Here are some of the concepts we covered during this game:

• Turn-taking
• Counting
• Pattern recognition
• One-to-one correspondence
• Fine motor skills

Do you have a Christmas math game your kids just loved? If so, please be sure to share it in the comments below!

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