It's a great time of the year for a picnic! If you can't get outside use some picnic themed activities and materials in your centers and free play spaces. There are so many beautiful stories to read and activities to integrate with the theme - especially for counting, order, color and patterns.
Here is a picnic themed math warm up or brain break to play!
Ants at the Picnic Math Warm Up
- put colored counters in a toy picnic basket or similar
- use a small cloth or square of paper as a picnic blanket
- choose one student to roll a dice and gather a matching number of 'ants' from the basket (without looking, just touching to count in their mind)
- have the student put the counters in a line
- have the class say the sequence of colors 3 times (e.g. blue, red, green, pink) to help with memory
- cover the line of counters with the picnic blanket
- ask one student to remake the line of counters - placing the counters on top of the blanket
- ask the class to recall the sequence and call it
- compare the counters on and under the blanket - adjust if necessary
- continue for several rounds
- leave the equipment in the free play area to give your students an opportunity to play independently later in the week
Picnic Action Rhyme
Don't forget we have an action rhyme Picnic Ants that your students could learn to help integrate your learning activities and provide you with a transition tool for classroom management (a more comprehensive version including activities and worksheets) is available in our store).
You may also like:
- Picnic Ants action rhyme
- more math warm ups
- more math activities for patterns
If you're not yet in the Pond Coloring Club - we'd love to have you!
