Play to Learn: Numbers Water Balloon Target Practice

 I am in full "Getting Ready for Kindergarten" mode with the Littlest Diva. I am spending time reviewing the basics with her so that she is feeling confident and ready to learn when school begins in a mere 3 weeks (where did summer go anyway?).

The other day I decided to do some quick number recognition review. I subscribe to the thinking that there is no better way to learn than through play so I turned the review into a game.  Being summer (and incredibly hot and humid here in FL) I wanted to incorporate water to entice her to play. When she came to me with our bag of balloons asking me to blow one up for her, I was inspired.

Water Balloon Target Practice

This can be used in many different ways - we will surely be doing this with sight words very soon.

Set-up:

I kept this very simple. I went outside and drew a large target/circle with 4 rings using various chalk colors. Then I randomly added 2 digit numbers in each ring. The middle target had a 3 digit number (a challenge!).

Play:

To play, each Lil Diva armed themselves with a water balloon and threw it at the target. They had to read whichever number it landed on. Our game ended when the numbers had been washed away.

It was quick & easy to set up, fun (and wet) for the girls to play and they didn't even realize they were working on basic math skills. I love when I can sneak in learning into fun time, don't you?

Other Ways to Play:

- sight words

- math facts

-vocabulary

- letter recognition

and more

How else would you use this game? 

I'd love to hear what you come up with.

Bern

Looking for more fun math ideas? Check our Preschool Math section or our Math Fun board on Pinterest - it's chock full of fab ideas.

*Note*-  Children should always be supervised when playing with water balloons.