These kindergarten math problems will help you teach early math skills in a fun, interactive way! In this blog post, you'll find printable worksheets, task cards, and games to make math hands-on and engaging.
Kindergarten is one of the most critical years for young learners. This is where we build a strong foundation in number sense, teach the most basic operations, and give names to the shapes in the world around us.
Because this time is so important, we must use evidence-based instructional practices that genuinely support our students' growth while also providing them with exciting, engaging activities to get them thinking and moving! These kindergarten math problems and resources were designed to be easy for you to prepare, developmentally appropriate and engaging for kids, and aligned with your state or national instructional goals.
Although many of the resources are available in my shop or Freebee Library, they are all included as part of The Hive! The Hive is an all-in-one digital teacher planner with thousands of printable resources, videos, and interactive digital learning tools which you can schedule into your day or pull up at a moment's notice. It's teaching smarter, not harder!
If you're teaching primary math this year, you'll also love the mathematics learning programs we have created for K-2! You'll find carefully designed lesson plans with differentiation strategies, matching resources, and activities. Just log in, search for the skill you're covering, and use it instantly!
Sound dreamy? Try it for free today with our 7 day free trial!
Printable Kindergarten Math Problems & Activities
Our kindergarten kids have a lot of learning to do this year. These printable and interactive resources are the perfect tools to support them in that process.
Number Recognition
This is where it all starts! One of our first steps is to help our kindergarten students understand that each numeral represents a specific number of units. I recommend leaning heavily on manipulatives, like dominoes, bear counters, the place value chart, ten frames, dice, and more.
The more representations, the more deeply your students will understand how numbers work. The following printable kindergarten math worksheets are a great place to start!
Number Printable Worksheets - These print-and-go worksheets are perfect for kindergarten!
There are several different levels, so you can make them more complex as students learn. They can even be used as play dough mats or tracing pages!
Number Match - There are four spaces on each numbered mat, and students find images matching each number from a bank of cards. I love these for small groups or independent practice!
Number Hexagons - These task cards are perfect for a math center or maths rotations! Just match the numeral with the corresponding image.
Number Match Ice Cream Game - In this game, the cones show the number, and students must find that number of scoops with different representations of the number. It's so helpful for consolidating both number identification skills and counting skills at the same time!
Swat the Fly Number Templates - This freebie is a fun, hands-on way to help students practice identifying numerals. I like to print these out and place them around the room, and have students say the name of the number as they swat it.
Get even more kindergarten number writing practice with these templates and activities! They're great for preschool, too.
Counting
One of the most important concepts young students learn is the idea of place value, which requires plenty of meaningful opportunities with number recognition and counting. Although many of the activities above can be used for counting, too, these ones focus on this specific skill.
Disappearing Digits - Kids fill in the missing numbers on these math charts. I like to put these in pocket sleeves to use them again and again!
Monster Eyes Counting - These free kindergarten math worksheets so much fun! Have your kids add the correct number of googly eyes to the monster bodies. They'll love arranging the eyes in different ways, which is a great way to practise those fine motor skills, too!
Build a Fence - Students line up the popsicle sticks in number order to complete the fence. It's simple, but it works!
I Spy & Count - Students will love playing I Spy and consolidating their early number skills with these I Spy and Count Mats!
Numbers Before & After - This open-ended activity can be used to consolidate early number and counting skills, as students identify the number/s after a given number. Students roll a dice and write the 4 numbers that come after. You can further differentiate by the number of dice used, or the number of sides on the dice.
Simple Addition
We spend a lot of time focusing on addition skills in the early years, as this concept is the foundation of subtraction and multiplication in later years.
We have created units for every element of K-2 math in The Hive, so you can easily pull up any of the lesson plans, slides, games, videos, and printables to support your instruction any time you need them! There are also loads of digital learning tools for your maths lessons, such as digital counters, manipulatives, ten frames, place value charts and more.
The following activities are just some of the hundreds of activities included in The Hive's K-2 mathematics units.
Finger Addition 1-10 - The kindergarten worksheets are a great bridge between finger counting and using symbolic representations! They can even count along with their own hands.
Counting On Task Cards - These cards make it easy to practise counting on, which is one of many addition strategies which we teach to our kindergarten students.
Addition Towers - Give your students a pile of unifix cubes to solve each of the math problems. Since this task is open-ended, they'll naturally find several different ways to solve each problem. These would be wonderful for math talks!
Number Line Addition Task Cards - The number line is such a useful concept to teach early on, especially as it connects to telling time and measurement later on. These free task cards use the jump strategy to practise addition up to 20.
Our Hive members can also use our digital number line to explicitly teach this concept too!
Addition Stories - These open-ended worksheets are one of my favourite activities! Kids can use these kindergarten worksheets as a backdrop to create their own story problems or you can fill out the sheet yourself and see how many different word problems your students can come up with based on the image.
This would be great for a daily math discussion! You can even have your student of the day create their own custom scene.
Students create different totals using the legs of characters from the book. See if they can find different ways to make the same total! Print multiple sets of the picture cards for students to combine to create different totals:
Students can demonstrate their understanding of number bonds to 5, 10 and 20 with these differentiated number bond task cards.
Simple Subtraction
Once students understand addition as combining parts to find the whole, they're ready for subtraction. These highly visual examples will give them great practice!
Takeaway Trash - This game highlights the idea that subtraction is about taking numbers apart. Students must "sweep" the subtracted part into the recycling bin to see what's left. Great for stations!
Finger Subtraction Templates - These templates are much cleaner than colouring on your fingers but achieve the same effect.
Hungry Shark Subtraction Mats - I love that these sheets model how to complete subtraction word problems and use the horizontal form at the same time. The repetition will really help reinforce these skills!
Counter Subtraction - The counters are a great next step after counting with fingers. The counters are still visual, but they're a little more abstract. Since these worksheets are open-ended, they can be used over and over with different numbers.
For more subtraction resources, check out these posts:
- 10 Fun Subcraction Worksheets for Kindergarten
- Best 2nd Grade Math Subtraction Worksheets & Activities. Although this one is written for older kids, there are resources to cover a variety of strategies that are also covered in kindergarten and first grade!
Geometry
In kindergarten, our young learners are expected to learn how to recognize basic 2D and 3D shapes. I've prepared a whole host of geometry resources on The Hive, including 3 weeks' worth of digital lesson plans, digital slides, task cards, tracing mats, printable worksheets, and more!
There are so many shapes activities on The Hive that I wrote an entire blog post about it. Visit 20+ Printable Kindergarten Shapes Worksheets & Activities here.
Looking for more?
This is just the start! There are so many more resources available in my shop, but to really level-up your mathematics instruction, I recommend joining The Hive.
You will have instant access to these educational materials and so much more! Every activity is designed using evidence-based methods so you can trust they're truly effective.
Plus, you'll LOVE our interactive digital learning tools. Here are just a few examples!
