Math with Dollar Tree Popsicle Sticks

This week I'm on a mission to share some fun math activities that your kiddos will love - the best part is that all of the materials you will to put them together are from the Dollar Tree.  I went to my local Dollar Tree store and I spent $11.  That $11 bought materials for 15 different math activities that are perfect for preschoolers.  I'll share one set of materials each day, and show you different games that you can use them for. 

Here are the items that I purchased:

The activities that I have to share with you today are all made with one package of colored popsicle sticks. 

There are so many things that you can do with popsicle sticks, the colors just make them more fun!

For this activity I used the popsicle sticks to make different geometric shapes, then I gave the children popsicle sticks and ask them to recreate the shapes.  

To practice shape recognition I made multiples of each shape (in corresponding colors) and then askd the children to find all of the triangles, squares, etc.  It is a very simple activity, but it's great for shape recognition, and after they match them you can see if they recognize that all of the same shapes are also the same colors. 

I love how simple this sequencing activity is.  I just wrote the numbers on the bottom of each popsicle stick, and then asked the children to put them in order.  I've also seen this done where you draw a picture on the popsicle sticks so that the children can put it together like a puzzle. 

This sort and count activity couldn't be easier to put together. I chose one purple, two blue, three red, four green, five yellow, and six orange popsicle sticks and put them in a small bucket.  The children had to sort them by color, and then put them in order by how many of that color there were.  There are only 6 colors in this set of popsicle sticks, but you could color plain popsicle sticks with a permanent marker for additional practice. 

How else could you use these materials for math practice? For more great ideas check out the rest of my Dollar Tree math material posts!

Dollar Tree Math Materials

Math Centers using Dollar Tree Rocks

Dollar Tree Math with Clear Glass Stones

Math Activities with Dollar Tree Ramekins