Elementary Kindergarten Preschool
PrintablesFallFine Motor ActivitiesMath
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If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m not a big fan of single skill activities. Most of the time, the activities that we do and share here on the site will work two, sometime even three or four, skills at the same time and with the first official day of fall quickly approaching, I’ve been trying to add a little bit of autumn into the mix as well.
With this fine motor apple counting activity, we pretty much hit the jack pot!
You may think they look like simple play dough mats, and you would be somewhat correct in that assumption. However, how you use them makes all the difference!
With these, we were able to work on fine motor skills, scissor skills, counting, colors, and more!
Setting up the activity is quick and easy as well! Just print off the play dough mats, laminate, grab a pair of scissors, some red and green play dough, and you’re all set!
What are the scissors for? Well, I’m glad you asked!
To strengthen those small motor muscles, we started with a giant ball of play dough that little man would roll into a snake and then cut into pieces with the scissors.
Each of the play dough mats have a blank space so that you can write a number for your child using a dry erase marker. Once you choose and write a number, have them cut the correct number of pieces from their play dough and then roll and shape those pieces into balls to act as apples.
From here, this activity kind of took on a life of its own and soon we were making apples of different sizes and sorting them, arranging them, naming colors, adding them, and more!
This was such a fun, hands-on way to practice a little early math while sneaking a few extra skills in there as well and one that we have already revisited a few times. If you give them a try, I hope you enjoy these printable play dough mats just as much as we have!
Looking for more fun apple ideas? Here are a few of our favorites!
