I love mini erasers because they are fun and tiny, which forces children to use their fine motor skills when using them for activities like these math center activities. I also like them because they come in all sorts of themes and can spark interest in an activity that might not be interesting with plain pom poms or other manipulatives.
These math center activities are perfect for preschool classes looking to keep kids from being too close too often. I am not happy with how we may be forced to teach either, but keeping my students safe is a priority. Tray activities like these can easily be used for independent learning in a preschool class. Since the activity is contained on a tray, you can space them out to give children a little social distancing even if you aren’t required to do so all day. The three printables I have included work on various levels of developing math skills – sorting, basic graphing and counting, and finally subitizing, one to one correspondence, and counting. All three also work on those already mentioned fine motor skills. If you are looking for an added challenge for any of these math center activities, add some tongs or tweezers for the students to use to handle the mini erasers, but only if a challenge is needed, because that can be very challenging.
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Mini Eraser Math Tray Activities
Gather your materials. You will need these printables ( print all three here), a tray for each activity, insect mini erasers ( click here for the exact ones I have) , a small dish, and dice.
Bug Sorting Math Tray
Place bee, ladybug, and butterfly mini erasers in a dish. Place the printable in the tray and invite the children to sort. If I was sitting next to a child doing this, I might ask them if they have ever seen one of these bugs, ask them which bug they like the most, and wonder out loud about which bug has the most erasers. If a child hasn’t already counted the mini erasers that usually prompts them, but don’t push.
Bee and Ladybug Graphing Math Tray
Place bee and ladybug mini erasers in the dish. Use different amounts of each. With younger children, use fewer. This math tray isn’t as intuitive as the last. Take the time to show children how to use it. I like to have multiple bowls with different amounts of bee vs. ladybug erasers ready, so if a child does want to repeat the activity, they can. Show them that all they have to do is sort them, count each side and then tell you which has more.
Bee Roll and Cover Math Tray
I love to roll and cover games. This is usually too tough for 3-year-olds, but near the end of the year, one of my students was getting the hang of it. It was inspiring. It’s so simple, simply roll the dice and place that many bee erasers on the hive! The skills that are being practiced here include counting, one to one correspondence, and subitizing. You are probably familiar with one to one correspondence, where one thing in a set is matched with exactly one element in another set. You may not be as familiar with the term subitizing. Essentially it’s the skill of immediately knowing an amount usually with tally marks, fingers, or dice. You don’t count the dots on a dice every time you roll. You know what the amounts look like. The same way you don’t count each finger when you see someone holding up all five, you know it’s five. Young children are developing this skill, and dice games are a great and fun way to do it.
Oh, and my other students who weren’t ready for this activity skipped the rolling and just covered each spot, some counting as they went. They worked on one to one correspondence either way.
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