9 Quick And Easy Math Center Activities

Every year, I’m on the hunt for math center activities for my classroom. I teach kindergarten and first grade, so I’m always on the lookout for hands-on activities that are engaging, collaborative, and will help students meet proficiency. After being tired of googling for these types of activities, I’ve decided to create them.

Here are low-prep, and hands-on math center activities that you can implement today.

Spin and Record

Kindergartners work on writing and representing numbers 1 to 10. Students spin the spinner in this activity, read the numbers, and find the number on a ten frame and write the number.

Grab, Count, and Compare

Students develop number sense by understanding that a number can be more than or less than another number. For this activity, students grab a handful of objects, count them, and compare them.

Roll and Cover One More

My students love dice games, so I love incorporating them in math activities, especially counting activities. In this activity, students roll the die and cover the number one more than what is displayed on the die. This is a great activity to teach students to count on from a given number.

Counting by 10s

Counting by tens is another important, early math skill that helps lay the groundwork for understanding place value. Combine that with a matching game, and you have a fun, hands-on activity!

Students match the number of fingers with the correct number card.

Slide and Decompose

My students LOVE this activity. It feels like a game, but they are really decomposing numbers in more than one way and writing equations. Students decompose the number 5 by sliding counters or small objects into two parts and writing the decomposition.

Solve and Find: Make 10

This card and board game will keep your students identifying all the ways to make 10. Students pick a card and figure out how many more they need to make 10. They cover the number on the game board.

Roll and Take Away

I love this game because students subtract by taking away the pieces of candy and writing an equation. This is another print-and-go activity and is easy to implement and explain to all students.

3D Shapes Roll and Cover

This is another dice game that teaches students the attributes of 3D shapes. Students roll the die and find an attribute of the shape on the game board and cover it with a small object.

Measure My Shoe

My students love measuring the length of their show! They get to take one shoe off, trace it, and use cubes to measure how long it is. This activity is a huge hit every year.