Number Matching Popsicles – Playful Way to Learn Basic Counting
Number matching popsicles are fun and easy to make! My 3-year-old daughter is all about crafting and playing pretend, and we had a blast creating and learning together!!
Pretend cooking, pretend eating, pretend shopping – these are different ways my daughter likes to re-enact real-life experiences!
Since she likes to play pretend and had so much fun with our color-matching popsicles, we used the backside of those popsicles to practice numbers in Chinese, my daughter’s second language.
This post has affiliate links. Please see our disclosure policy for further details.
Number matching popsicles: What you need
- Stiff felt or foam sheets
- Craft sticks (plain or colored)
- Felt glue or hot glue gun
- Cardboard
- Optional:
Number matching popsicles: How to make them
- Write number names on craft sticks. Since my children are learning Chinese as a minority language, we wrote the numbers in Chinese on the craft stick. I recommend writing the words in black ink rather than colorful ink so the words are clear and legible.
- Draw 棒冰 (popsicle) shape onto cardboard. This will be the popsicle template.
- Trace the cardboard on different colors of felt
- Cut felt into 棒冰 shape
- Glue edges of 棒冰 shape, leaving an opening on the bottom edge
- Use heart punch to cut hearts
Number matching popsicles: Candid photos!
Here my daughter is painting popsicle sticks with cotton balls.
I helped my daughter with squeezing the felt glue bottle.
Gluing the hearts (or other pieces) is not necessary if your child prefers to repeat the matching activity. If you don’t glue the pieces, then you can match the correct number of pieces over and over again.
However, my wanted to glue the hearts so that they did not fall off while she played with the popsicles. That’s okay because you want your child to be happy about using the craft that you’ve made! Plus it’s still reinforces 1:1 correspondence!
Here you can see that my daughter has placed correct number of hearts onto the matching popsicle stick. While we put the hearts on each popsicle, we practiced counting out loud in Chinese.
Here is the finished product; ready to play and learn with number matching popsicles!
If you make educational number matching popsicles, let us know in the comments below!
More hands-on math activities for children
- How I’m Teaching My Children Basic Math For Free and Without Workbooks
- 10+ useful Chinese resources for learning counting and math