Free Bead Counting Activities for Preschool

Beads and string are the perfect counting tools for preschoolers! Little hands get wonderful fine motor skill practice when threading the beads as they practice their numbers and counting for preschool! Sometimes though, you might not have the right materials at home, or you don’t want to clean up beads that have fallen onto the floor, or maybe you are virtually learning and you need an alternative to the hands on preschool counting activity! These Free Bead Counting Activities for Preschool provide all the benefits of counting with beads and string in digital and printable formats!

This activity is a great addition to your home learning or classroom lesson plans! Children will love mixing and matching bead colors as they perfect their counting skills with this activity!

What Math Skills Should I Teach My Preschooler?

Preschool learning activities should be fun and hands on! Here are some math concepts that you can incorporate into play activities for your little one!

• Counting skills! Preschoolers should work on counting up to 20. Start with counting 1-5 first and slowly work your way up to 20!
• One to one correspondence! As your preschooler masters rote counting (verbally saying the numbers in order), have them work on number activities that allow them to count individual objects out one at a time! Interactive counting games for preschoolers like this bead counting activity are a great way to practice this skill!
• Sort and count! Work on colors and shapes with your little one! They can sort objects, such as pattern blocks, into piles and then practice counting them!

How To Use This Counting Math Activity For Preschoolers:

Digital Activity:

After you enter your email address to get this activity, head to your email inbox, open the email, and click the link to get your activity!

Choose the link for the Google Slides Activity or Seesaw activity, depending on which platform you are using with your students!

If using Google Slides, make sure you follow the prompts to “Make a Copy” of the activity so that it will be interactive and you will be able to share it with your students!

Keep the activity open in “edit” mode. Your learners will drag and drop the beads onto the string as they practice their counting skills!

Printable:

Print the activity onto card stock and laminate the pages! You could print the pages double sided to save paper, but it may be better to keep one page for each activity for ease of use if you plan on assembling the pages into a book!

Cut out the beads on the last page. If your little one is working on scissor skills you can have them help you with this part!

Attach clear velcro to the backs of the beads. Put five pieces of the velcro evenly spaced out on the image of the string (make sure it is the complimentary piece to what you attached to the beads so they will stick together!).

Assemble the pages into a book and use ribbon, yarn, or plastic binding to keep the pages together!

Other Ways To Use This Activity:

• When using the digital activity, young children may have a hard time keeping track of how many beads they have moved to the string. Provide them with manipulatives such as counting bears or actual beads to physically count out on the table and help them keep track!
• Practice color identification by asking your little one to name the colors, or ask them to place the beads in specific places according to their color! Can you put a blue bead on the string first?
• These bead counting activities can be a great way to introduce addition and subtraction! You need a total of four beads, you already added two, how many more do you need? You took away one bead, how many are leftover?