This evergreen tree math activity is a good way to work on counting, 1:1 correspondence and ordering. Add dot stickers and turn it into a Christmas tree!
This week the PLAYful Preschool theme is evergreen trees. The team has a bunch of fun planned for you and your kids, so don’t forget to check out all their posts too!
I like this activity because you can use it over and over again. I planned on keeping it a simple evergreen tree, but Evan had other plans. After doing our Christmas Tree Counting and Matching Activity, he wanted to add dot stickers to this tree as well. So now it is a Christmas tree. You can definitely skip the stickers and keep it a plain evergreen tree though.
Materials Needed: (this post contains affiliate links)
2 sheets of green construction paper
One small piece of brown construction paper
Green Do A Dot marker
Ruler
Scissors
Dot stickers (optional)
Activity Prep:
1. Cut 10 strips of paper from the green construction paper. Then trim them down so they stagger in size from smallest to largest. Older kids could do this by themselves.
2. Cut a trunk for the tree from the brown construction paper.
Activity Details:
We started with the smallest strip of green construction paper first and Evan used the Do A Dot marker to add one dot to the strip. Then we moved to the next biggest strip and he added two dots with the marker. As the numbers got higher, I did have to help him count out the dots as he marked them because he would lose track or get ahead of himself while using the marker at the same time.
After we put marker dots on every strip of paper, we began ordering them. We started with the largest strip of paper and then I asked him to look for the next biggest strip and so on down the line until we had a full evergreen tree. He really liked being able to move the strips around to change the look of the tree. He had them all leaning to one side and proudly exclaimed “Look, the tree is leaning over!”
He came up with the idea that he wanted to turn the tree into a Christmas tree by adding colorful dot stickers. So he went back over the strips of paper adding dot stickers on top of the marker dots.
We saved the strips of paper and I have used this as a busy activity several times since making it. It is a great independent activity and would be perfect for a preschool math center.
Check out all the other posts from the Playful Preschool team!