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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
Humpty Dumpty is many preschoolers’ favorite nursery rhyme and lends itself to many fantastic classroom activities. As a preschool math center, this Humpty Dumpty count and color game will be a firm favorite and allows you to incorporate some key learning to count skills as you develop and extend your nursery rhyme theme across all curriculum areas. Students will enjoy the competition as well as the knowledge that they are helping to keep Humpty safe from falling off the wall in the first place!
Learning to Count With a Dice
This simple learning to count Humpty Dumpty activity contains a whole host of preschool math and social skills. Using traditional dice will encourage students to subitize, or recognize a set of dots or images as a number instead of needing to count each one. Additionally, if you use the themed dice included in the set, it will help them with counting to 6 as they will need to color in as many bricks as they roll. Finally, by using it as a partner game you can encourage turn-taking, sharing of resources, and celebrating the success of others.
Preparing Humpty Dumpty Count and Color
For this activity you will need:
Paper
Printer
Scissors and glue to prepare the printable dice
Coloring pencils
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This learning to count activity comes ready to print and play. If you intend for students to play the add and subtract game below, you should laminate the sheets so that they can use dry-wipe markers when erasing; otherwise, print off a few dozen sets and you’re ready for an instant nursery rhyme math center.
Alternative Uses of Humpty Dumpty Count and Color
It’s easy to use this Humpty Dumpty activity straight away by simply following Humpty’s directions on the game page. However, there are other ways to extend this preschool math center:
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Cumulative counting games – for those students who are looking for an additional challenge, have them play the game independently but instead of starting each new set of counting at 1, have them continue from their previous dice roll. For example, if their first roll was a 5, have them color 5 bricks. Then if their second roll was a 3, have them start counting out at 6 up to 8. This will help them sequence their numbers as well as helping them develop some basic additional knowledge.
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Add and subtract – to start developing the idea of more and less, have students take turns to color bricks in and erase them. For example, if the first student rolls a 6, they color in 6 bricks. Then the second rolls a 3 and erases 3 of those bricks. This should be an adult-led center so you can help them count up and down as they get closer to saving Humpty Dumpty.
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Social skills – instead of treating this Humpty Dumpty activity as a competition, turn it into a scripted social scenario for two students to work. The first student rolls a dice and asks their partners to color in that many bricks for them. You can introduce concepts like “please” and “could you” as part of the script, as well as allowing students to pick specific colors and even specific bricks.
Like this? Then you’ll love my 10 Nursery Rhyme Themed Literacy and Math Centers. These easy-prep games will get your students working on math, literacy and fine motor skills.
Games included:
1) Humpty Dumpty Roll and Cover Numbers – 2 playing mats included for use with 1 or 2 dice
2) Hey Diddle Diddle Number Puzzle Strips – Work on number order for 1-10, 11-20 and counting by 2s.
3) Sequencing Mats for 9 Rhymes – The 9 rhymes included in this pack come with 1 sequencing mat each where kids will be able to put 5 different pictures in order.
4) Jack and Jill Water Pail Number Match – Practice counting and number recognition with this game.
5) Baa Baa Baa Black Sheep Color Match – Flip 2 cards over at a time trying to find the same color pair of sheep until all sheep have been matched up.
6) Little Miss Muffet Tracing Lines – 15 different patterns to trace as the spider makes its way down to Little Miss Muffet.
7) Incy Wincy Spider Alphabet Match – Pair up the upper and lowercase letters bringing together the water pipe and the sun.
8) Little Boy Blue Alphabet Haystack Hunt – Print out the haystack letter cards and hide the Little Boy Blue card behind one of them. Kids will love shouting out the letters as they try to find him ‘under the haystack’.
9) Pat-A-Cake Alphabet Decorating – Use these mats to do some Q-tip painting or pin pushing to work on fine motor skills as well as literacy.
10) 1,2,3,4,5, Fishing For Sight Words – Set up these sight words cards in a sensory bin for kids to ‘fish’ out or they could also fish out the letters to form the sight word on the card.
Check it out for more ready-to-go fun!
Nursery Rhyme Books For Your Library:
Other Coloring Printables You’ll Love:
1) Counting Colorful Bugs Book – Printable bug themed counting and coloring book from 1 to 10, great for spring!
2) Fruit and Vegetable Alphabet Pages – These alphabet coloring pages are great for learning fruit and vegetable vocabulary as well as getting in some handwriting practice.
3) Alphabet Pie Pick and Color – This turkey-themed letter recognition activity is so simple to prep and makes a great file folder game!
4) Spring Color by Number Pack –There are 6 spring-themed color by number pages included in this pack.
5) Frog Color by Number – This spring color by number printable is perfect for your frog-themed lesson plan. Preschoolers will really enjoy learning their numbers with this free frog color by number printable!
6) Chinese New Year Count and Color – Chinese New Year themed pack includes 5 activities for various preschool skills.
Nursery Rhyme Tools For Your Classroom:
Browse My Most Popular Math Printables:
1) Parking Cars Tracing Lines – More than 10 different tracing line patterns to choose from, all of which help with pencil control.
2) Scarecrow Arrange By Size – 3 different scarecrow-themed image sets that they will arrange from smallest to biggest.
3) Bumblebee Addition Game – Solve the sum and help the bee land on the correct flower!
4) Farm Shapes Mats – Use playdough, pompoms, stickers etc to learn 2D shapes.
5) Popsicle Stick Number Formation – Kids will love forming the numbers 1 to 10 when ice cream and popsicles are involved!
6) Valentines Printable Worksheets Pack – 50 pages of mixed literacy and math activities.
7) Zoo Animals Number Puzzle Strips – Complete these cute puzzles and learn the numbers 1 to 20.
8) Counting Colorful Bugs – This printable book will help kids count to 10 while also learning about color words.
9) Humpty Dumpty Numbers – In this printable game, your students will practice number recognition using 1 dice or simple addition when using 2 dice.
10) Build A Number Santa – Match the number to the correct number word, tally mark and domino to form a Santa Claus
