Halloween Math Games with Manipulatives for Preschool or Elementary School

Here's a simple and fun way to have Halloween Math time.  Simply use dried beans from your cupboard (kidney beans or other) and paint one side of each bean orange and the other side white.  Let them dry.  Then paint ghost faces on the white side and pumpkin faces on the orange side with sharpie markers (or another permanent marker).

Once they are all dry, here are 3 simple games you can have your students or children do.  Who said learning can't be fun??

1.  Patterns.  As shown in the picture, you can have the children practice various patterns.  ABAB, AAB, ABB, etc.  For example, in the picture above, the top line is ABAB (ghost, pumpkin, ghost, pumpkin).  The second line is AAB (ghost, ghost, pumpkin, ghost, ghost, pumpkin).  For an example or for younger children, you can set up the pattern and have the children guess what would come next.

2. Sorting.  With a large pail of painted beans, dump them onto the floor so the one side of the bean is face up.  Allow the child to sort all the pumpkins and all the ghosts.  Or all the orange beans and all the white beans.

3. Graphing.  You can paint other kidney beans gray with a cat face or green with a monster face and have the children make a picture graph to see which character has the most.


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