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As I was walking through Dollar Tree the other day, I saw these colorful popsicle sticks and thought they were perfect for a rainbow project! So today I’m sharing Rainbow Tally Marks practice to help build number sense.
These rainbow tally marks are a great, hands-on way to practice counting by 5’s, counting on, and working on fine motor a bit as well! Rainbows always make me happy and are great to use all year long, or during your weather unit, St. Patrick’s Day, or spring in general.
Getting ready
You’ll need colorful popsicle sticks (we found them at Dollar Tree) or you could use regular popsicle sticks too if you can’t find the colorful ones. You’ll also need to download, print and cut out the rainbow number cards that you can find at the bottom of this post.
Counting Tally Marks
To play, have your student choose a rainbow number card. They can then use the colorful popsicle sticks to create that number as tally marks. Once they have created the number correctly, they can choose another number to make.
These work great during small groups so you can be sitting there to help make sure their count is correct but can easily be used as a math center ask well. You could even send them home with the kiddos that need a little extra practice.
We used plastic photo boxes to keep the sticks and rainbow number cards all together so they can easily be stored. The kids can easily grab the boxes during center or small group time and start working.
You can download the rainbow
I hope your kiddos love making rainbow tally marks! See you next time!
Jenette
Thank you for sharing. As an unemployed church preschool teacher who is moving up to teach the 4/5 class, I need all of the help that I can find. It’s been over 20 years since I taught kindergarten. Learning to count tallies will help us in science and charting other things.