Hands-On Apple Addition Activity
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Looking for ways to make addition practice even more engaging and interactive this fall? Make numbered felt apples and use pom poms as counters to work on sums. Add this hands-on Apple Addition Activity for Kindergarten to your math centers and it will have your students begging to practice adding numbers!
*Pair this with our Apple Centers and Activities for Pre-K & Kindergarten!
Hands-On Apple Addition Activity
This hands-on apple addition activity is perfect for kids just learning to make sums and still needing hands-on practice to find an answer. It works great for hands-on subtraction practice too and is super fun and easy to set up!
To get started, you’ll need:
- Red (or green/yellow) felt
- Scissors
- Red, green, and yellow pom poms
- A 3-compartment tray (or use masking tape to create sections on a regular tray)
- Plastic tweezers
- Marker
- Two white stickers (3 if you want to work on subtraction, as well)
How to Prep
To begin, cut apple shapes from the felt. I only cut ten, but you can cut however many you need. Don’t have felt? Craft foam or laminated construction paper work great too.
Next, number each apple with a marker.
Lastly, write the plus (or minus) and equal signs on the stickers and attach to the tray compartments as shown in the image above. Add the apples, pom poms, and the tweezers to the tray.
RELATED RESOURCE: Addition Centers and Activities for Pre-K & Kindergarten
How to Play
For this apple addition activity, let your child choose two numbered apples and place them in the first two compartments.
For each apple, they can use the tweezers to pick up the corresponding number of pom poms and place them in the last compartment, counting as they drop them. We call this “picking the apples.”
When they are done they will say the number sentence, for example: “2 plus 1 equals what?” to get used to mathematical terms and vocabulary.
To finish, the kids can count the total number of “apples” in the last compartment to find the sum.
Working with the tweezers strengthens fine motor skills in the fingers – an important skill for writing. You could also use a clothespin if you do not have tweezers on hand.
Would your kids enjoy this hands-on apple addition activity?
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