Sticker Ants One-to-one Correspondence Activity for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners

May 4, 2023 | DIY Crafts & Activities | 0 comments

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I am sure on one of your trips outside, with or without your littles, you have seen a line of determined ants walking forward and backwards on a journey of seeking out or storing food. When I see these small insects going on their way, I admire them for their hard work! While the girls and I learned about bugs and insects, we did a simple ant-themed activity to work on the following math skills:

one-to-one correspondence,
number recognition
number name recognition.

Use Black Dot Stickers to Build the Ant Bodies in the Anthill

This build the ants in the anthill activity was so inviting for my littles!

Did you know that sticker activities help little ones by developing:

Spacial awareness
Concentration
Hand-eye coordination
Pincer grasp
Visual scanning
Bilateral Hand coordination
Hand strength

Here is our article entitled: DIY Cardboard One-To-One Correspondence Counting Cards for Toddlers, where you can read about these important math skills.

In the above article, you will learn about the following:

What tagging is
What is one-to-one correspondence, and why is it important
Four tips to consider when working on the skill of one-to-one correspondence with your child

What you will need to recreate this activity:

Learning journal
Black stickers
White chalk marker
Markers
Sticky notes
Brown construction paper
Items to use as counters for counting ( We used black connecting cubes.)

You can use the following as counters:

Buttons
Bottle caps
Stones
Blocks
Connecting cubes
Pompoms

How to put this activity together:

When you have collected all your materials, follow the six simple steps below.

Step 1: Cut brown construction paper down to create the nests inside of the anthill based on the size of your learning journal and glue it into your journal.

Step 2: Use your brown marker to create an outline for the anthill that is above ground, and use your green marker to draw grass on top of the dirt outline.

Step 3: Use a black marker to draw the ant nests in the anthill, where your little one will place the ants by numbers. (I drew six ant nests labelling them from numbers one to six.)

Step 4: Use a red marker to make dots for the corresponding amount for each number in each ant nest.

Step 5: Place two black stickers in each nest. When doing this step, be mindful that your little ones will be adding stickers to build the ant bodies.) Also, use a black marker to add antennas if you wish.

Step 6: Use your white chalk marker to add eyes to the ants in the anthill and write numbers 1-6 on your extra black stickers and white dots for the numbers 1-6 for your little one to match.

Now that the activity is ready, place your child’s journal on a flat surface with their stickers and a container with their counters and let the learning fun begin!!

How to present your child with this simple yet fun learning activity:

If you have been following our learning journey for some time, you know that we do a lot of activities to work on one-to-one correspondence because it is an important Math skill that requires a lot of practice for little ones to master. Simply put, this is a skill that they become more confident in over time.
So we do a lot of counting for numbers 1-10.

You can use paper or sticky notes to show your child the corresponding amounts for numbers 1-6. We used sticky notes. I did this because my girls are used to working with numbers 1-6 and are now able to look and quickly say how many objects they see.

After they guess the amount, we count together, and they find the number names on the anthill.

After they identify the amounts and identify the number names, you can present your child with counters for them to count out the number of objects that correspond with the number they have identified.

Have your little one work to build the body of the ants by finding and adding the sticker with the number and the sticker with the corresponding dots to the head of the ant. It really does not matter which order they add the stickers in.

Repeat the above steps for each number until all the ants in the anthill are completed.

When the activity was completed, the girls wanted to add legs to their ants, and I allowed them to because I was all for the development of the fine motors!

When the activity is completed, a great recap activity could be drawing six ants on paper or on a whiteboard and then work with your child to add the corresponding dots, trace the number names and the numbers. With this recap activity, your little one will get an opportunity to put what they are learning into practice.

You know what your child can manage, so meet them at the level they are at. Maybe they can trace the number and add amounts or just add the corresponding amounts.

How to Extend Learning with this Simple Activity

You can have your little ones count all the ants that are in the anthill.
Instead of using the activity to teach number names, number recognition and one-to-one correspondence, you can use this activity to teach addition and subtraction.
What number or letter comes next
This activity can be used to teach upper and lower-case letters
Review or teach word families
Review or teach shapes
Review or teach letter order
Review or teach number order

We do hope you find this activity useful.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us by sending us a message or visiting us @learning.stepbystep on Instagram, Learning Step By Step on Facebook and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for educational resources that will help you and your littles on their learning journey as they continue to Learn Step By Step!

Thank you for being here!

Kimberlee and the Learning Step By Step Team.