Put the numbers on the clothesline {math printables}

XGirl is working on learning her numbers. Although she can count to 10, she only recognizes a few numbers. I have been trying to come up with creative ways to help her practice number recognition and number ordering. I created this activity, which I call Put the Numbers on the Clothesline, to capitalize on her interest in all things domestic to give her some additional practice.

Below I share how I used this activity in two different ways to help my kids learn different math skills. I also provide a link for you to download this activity to try with your children!

Note: For more activities, resources, and printables for teaching math, see my math activities for kids page. 

For this activity, I prepared the following materials:

• 10 clothespins
• Yarn
• Kid-friendly scissors
• 10 numbered shirts from my Put the Numbers on the Clothesline printable (see below to download)

To set up the activity, I told XGirl that we were camping. Our clothes had gotten dirty and needed to be washed. However, the campground had no dryer, so we needed to hang them up to dry. At this point, I invited her to use the yarn to string up her own clothes drying line.

Then I put the ten numbered shirts on the ground and we proceeded to “get them dirty.” She laughed so hard at this point.

Once XGirl decided the clothes were sufficiently “dirty,” she began to “wash” them.  Being the domestic diva that she is, she went all out in this part of our simulation. And because I laminated the shirts with our awesome home laminator, they were very sturdy and stood up to all of her “washing.”

Finally, the clothes were clean and needed to be dried. I explained that we needed to hang them up in order from 1 to 10.

At this point I worked with her to identify each number in turn so she could hang it on the clothesline.

A few days later, I repeated the activity with QBoy. He already knows his numbers from 1 to 10, so I used this activity as an opportunity to introduce skip counting by 2’s. I did this by having him hang up all 10 shirts and then go through and drop every other one started with number 1. When he finished, only the even numbers were left.

And here is a sneak peak at the complete printable. As you will see, it is possible to practice counting by 1’s all the way up to 20. I also created a second set that involves skip counting by 5’s from 5 to 100.  So there are lots of ways to differentiate this activity for learners at various levels. I anticipate repeating this activity again with XGirl when she is ready to work on numbers up to 20 and again with QBoy when he is ready to do skip counting by 5’s.

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More ways to teach to numbers

More number posts from Gift of Curiosity:

• Egg carton number matching game
• Favorite tools for teaching numbers and letters
• Road Numbers printable

You can find more ways to teach numbers on my Math Activities for Kids page and my Learning Numbers Pinterest board.

Follow Katie @ Gift of Curiosity’s board Learning Numbers on Pinterest.

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