The great thing about making your own number strip puzzles is that it’s not only easy, but you can personalize the image to the child. Whatever you think would motivate your kid…Disney princesses, Pokémon, their favorite animal, etc…it’s simple to turn it into a number strip puzzle. You could even use pictures of your child.

Really, the concept is simple. By downloading the templates below, you can use any photo-editing software to overlay one of these number puzzle frames on the image of your choice. Below you’ll find a step-by-step tutorial for using the online photo editor, PicMonkey (affiliate link — note, you can use the free version for this tutorial, but paying for a membership will give you cool fonts and other features). There are templates to help your child learn to count to ten, count to 20, count to 30, count by tens, count by fives, and learn their even and odd numbers up to 20.

Number Frame Templates

• Number Puzzle Frame: 1 to 10
• Number Puzzle Frame: 11 to 20
• Number Puzzle Frame: 31 to 30
• Number Puzzle Frame: Count by Tens
• Number Puzzle Frame: Count by Fives
• Number Puzzle Frame: Count by Evens
• Number Puzzle Frame: Count by Odds

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Early Elementary
Time Required: ~10 minutes
Difficulty: Fairly Easy (Does require a tiny bit of basic computer skills, like saving and locating files)
Cost: Free (except for whatever printer ink/toner gets used)

Materials:

• Paper
• One of the Number Frame Puzzle templates above
• Digital image of your choice

Supplies & Tools:

• Computer with internet access
• Printer
• Paper trimmer or scissors
• Glue stick

Instructions:

1. First, if you haven’t already done so, you need to select which image you would like to use and make sure you know where it is saved on your computer. I recommend using Google Images. Since this is for personal use, you don’t need to worry about violating any copyright or trademarks.



2. If using Google Images, click on the picture you want, then right-click and select “Save Picture As” to save the image to your computer.



3. Next, make sure you have the number frame template you would like to use saved to your computer. Here they are again:
   • Number Puzzle Frame: 1 to 10
   • Number Puzzle Frame: 11 to 20
   • Number Puzzle Frame: 31 to 30
   • Number Puzzle Frame: Count by Tens
   • Number Puzzle Frame: Count by Fives
   • Number Puzzle Frame: Count by Evens
   • Number Puzzle Frame: Count by Odds
4. Next, go to Picmonkey.com.
5. First click on Edit, then click on Computer in order to select an image from your computer. Locate the picture image that you want to use for your puzzle.



6. Once your image is open, click on the Overlay (butterfly-shaped) button on the left hand side.



7. At the top of the page, click on Add Your Own, then My Computer. Locate the Number Frame template you would like to use.



8. Now you should have the number frame template on top of your picture. Drag the Overlay and Layers boxes out of the way of your image. You could also just close them.



9. Next you just need to move the frame and resize it until it is covering the part of the picture that you want. You can move it by clicking in the middle of the overlay and dragging. You can resize the overlay by clicking on the corners or edges and dragging. Note: If you want to stretch the overlay, just hold down shift while you are dragging.



10. Next, you can crop the picture around the template. Note that you don’t really HAVE to do this step, since you’re going to cut out the pieces anyway, but you can save ink by getting rid of the parts of the image you don’t want. Click on the Basic Edits button near the top left. It looks like 3 sliders.



11. Click on Crop. Drag the corners of the crop box to fit around your number puzzle. Then hit Apply.



12. Now you are ready to save your image. Click on Save at the top.



13. Click on Save to My Computer. Make sure you know where the file is being saved on your computer and what it is named.



14. Next, print the file you just saved. On a PC, you can just right click the picture and select Print. It will give you options of how big you want to print your picture. Make sure you de-select the box that says “Fit Picture to Frame” to make sure none of your picture gets cut off. You could also insert the image into a document before printing if you want it to be sized a certain way.



15. After you’ve printed your picture, cut if out.
16. Give the pieces to the child to work on along with a blank piece of paper and a glue stick.

A great thing about these puzzles is that they are self-correcting. If the child does not put the numbers in the correct order, the picture will not look right.

However, if your child desires help figuring out the order, I fully recommend giving them some help. My 5 year old does not know how to count by 5’s, so when we did this puzzle, I wrote down all the numbers 1 to 50 on a piece of paper then had her circle every 5. She still might not know how to count by 5’s, but she’s gaining familiarity. Funny story: recently she was showing someone how she could count by tens by reading one of these number puzzles. After they expressed some awe at her amazing mathematical talents, she sadly admitted that she cheated. Apparently, she considers me having told her how to read numbers (10, 20, 30, etc.) as cheating.

Enjoy!

Related Links:

Math Activities for Kids
Best Gifts for Kids
Homemade Fun for Kids

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My kids love doing Easter egg hunts at Easter so much that we sort of do them all year round, particularly in the months leading up to and following Easter. However, what I don’t like about Easter egg hunts is that we used to always fill the eggs with food. Since we do them so frequently, I’d moved away from candy and cookies and started filling them with things like stickers, goldfish crackers, raisins, and yogurt melts. (Even better is when I get my kids to fill them instead. Then all I have to do is hide them.) However, I still don’t love the idea of them filling themselves up before dinner on raisins and crackers, even if it is a better situation than when they gorged themselves on jelly beans and mini Oreos.

This year, I came up with an improvement which has worked out REALLY well. I bought a roll of 2000 raffle tickets for $3 and started filling the eggs with raffle tickets instead of treats. I also bought a bunch of cheap prizes like pencils, Hot Wheels, inflatable beach balls, and rubber stamps and put them in a shoe box. Now, after they play each game they can use their tickets to “buy” a prize, Chuck E. Cheese style. This has worked out well for so many reasons. 1) No more edible treats. 2) It’s such a great opportunity to practice math skills (counting, number recognition, even addition and subtraction). 3) They’re also getting practice with money concepts and learning that if they save their tickets from one game to the next, they can earn an even bigger prize. Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten
Time Required: ~1 hour for initial setup. Subsequent games are about 10 minutes to fill eggs and hide them plus another 5 minutes to help them count their tickets and choose a prize (per child).
Difficulty: Super Easy
Cost: About $5 to buy raffle tickets and sticker labels for writing “prices.” I got a little carried away buying prizes and spent about $30 or $40, but honestly, I think you could get by spending maybe $10 to start. I estimate the prizes I bought will last at least a year. We already have way too many Easter baskets and plastic eggs, but you will need those as well.

Materials:

• roll of raffle tickets
• sticker labels (I used Avery Color Coding Labels)
• plastic eggs
• basket (or other container/bag to collect eggs in)
• shoe box
• prizes (The best deal is to buy packs, like gift bag packs of toy airplanes or stationary packs with pencils, sharpeners, erasers, and note pads, then divide them up into multiple prizes.)

Supplies & Tools:

• A sharpie or other marker

Instructions:

1. The first time you play, add sticker labels to all your prizes and write a “price” on each one. I roughly did a third to half the number of cents that each prize cost. For example, a Hot Wheels car cost $1, so I made the label say anywhere from 33 to 50. I tried to vary the numbers even for the same type of prize so that my preschooler would have more opportunity to recognize different numbers (i.e. similar cars for 33, 37, and 44 instead of all of them being worth the same number of tickets). Another advantage of this which I didn’t anticipate is that my 5 year old has figured out to look through the box to find the best “deal” for what he wants.
2. Place all the prizes in the shoe box and, if you want, label the box with a sign that says “Prizes”.
3. Each game, you will need to fill the eggs with a few raffle tickets. I placed between 1 and 5 in each one, so that there would be some variety. Most commonly I put either 2 or 3.
4. Hide the eggs.
5. Give each kids a basket and say “Ready. Set. GO!”
6. After they are done hunting, help them count their eggs and “buy” prizes.

Click here for more Addition and Subtraction activities for kids.

Related Links

Homemade Fun for Kids
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Kids seem to enjoy matching upper and lowercase letters so much in this homemade letter matching game, that I decided to try something similar with numbers. Admittedly, this number matching game a little more tedious if the child has not yet made the connection that a 2 digit number can be broken up into it’s tens component and units component (i.e. 25 is two tens plus five units). The Montessori Golden Beads and Montessori Number Symbol Cards are another way to teach this concept. However, once your child starts to get the hang of it, this is a quick and easy activity that your child can do on his or her own after you set up the “game”. The fact that they get to move around while they complete the task is an added bonus for many kids.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten
Time Required: ~2 hours
Difficulty: Easy (though drawing all those dots gets to be a bit of a pain).
Cost: Less than $5 in used supplies.

Materials:

• Homemade Number Cards (optional)
• blank index cards
• markers
• contact paper

Supplies & Tools:

• scissors
• ruler

Instructions:

1. If you have not already made the Homemade Number Cards, write the numbers you want to help teach on a blank index card. I went up to 30.
2. Draw dots corresponding to the same set of numbers on separate index cards. I think it makes the most sense to draw the dots in rows of 10, so that the child can start to learn to associate the fact that 23, for example, is two rows of 10 plus 3 extra. To do this easily, I made a reference card as shown below. Since I used 3″x5″ cards, I drew my reference dots 1/2″ apart starting 1/4″ from the edge (so I drew tick marks at 1/4″, 3/4″, 1 and 1/4″, 1 and 3/4″, all the way to 4 and 3/4″)



3. “Laminate” the cards with contact paper or with a laminator.
4. Trim the edges of the laminated cards.

To play, tape all the number cards up on a wall in order. Then tape all the dot cards nearby in a big jumble. Have the child move all the dot cards and tape them underneath the appropriate written number card. The advantage of using the Homemade Number Cards is that they already have the answer on the back, so if the child wants to check that they found the right number, they can flip the card up and make sure the dots match.

Click here for more Counting and Number Recognition activities for kids.

Related Links

Pre-K Learning Activities
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Best Books for Preschool

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Honestly, I made these homemade number cards out of necessity, not because they’re any fun by themselves. Sometimes it’s hard for kindergarteners to remember the numbers that don’t make any sense. Like why is 11 called eleven and not one-teen? Similarly hard numbers are 12, 13, 15, and 20. I believe in having kids figure things out for themselves instead of, for example, telling them that 20 means twenty. If your child can count, then the answer is on the back of the card. If they don’t know what the written number 11 means, have them count the dots on the back, and they can say, “Oh yeah, one-one is eleven.” Likely they will get tired of doing this and gain a little motivation to memorize the hard numbers. Another reason why I made these cards is so that we could play a number matching game similar to the letter matching game, which kids seem to enjoy.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten
Time Required: ~2 hours
Difficulty: Easy (though drawing all those dots gets to be a bit of a pain).
Cost: Less than $5 in used supplies.

Materials:

• blank index cards
• markers
• contact paper

Supplies & Tools:

• scissors
• ruler

Instructions:

1. Write a number on each of the index cards. I chose to alternate colors and outline the number in black to make it look prettier. I also chose to go up to 30 since that’s how high kindergarteners are expected to recognize in my community.
2. Draw dots on the back of each index card corresponding to the number on the other side. I think it makes the most sense to draw them in rows of 10, so that the child can start to learn to associate the fact that 23, for example, is two rows of 10 plus 3 extra. To do this easily, I made a reference card as shown below. Since I used 3″x5″ cards, I drew my reference dots 1/2″ apart starting 1/4″ from the edge (so I drew tick marks at 1/4″, 3/4″, 1 and 1/4″, 1 and 3/4″, all the way to 4 and 3/4″)



3. “Laminate” the cards with contact paper or with a laminator.
4. Trim the edges of the laminated cards.

Click here for more Counting and Number Recognition activities for kids.

Related Links

Pre-K Learning Activities
Math Activities
Best Books for Preschool

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I decided to make the Montessori colored bead stair after I had already made my own imitation “golden” (actually white) beads. So far, the colored beads representing each number between 1 and 9 are not actually necessary, since the child can just count out the appropriate number of single golden beads. However, they are a handy shortcut that keep the child interested in whatever we’re doing.

If I expected my kid to count out 9 single beads every time he wanted to represent 9 (which I already know he’s capable of doing), he would get bored really fast and find the whole exercise too tedious. However, if he can just grab a 9-bar out of our set of colored beads, he’s likely to stay interested much longer.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Early Elementary
Time Required: Each bar takes about 1-2 minutes to make depending on the length. With one 500 pack of beads of various colors, I was able to make ten each of 2-,3-,and 4-bars, nine 5-bars, six 6- and 7- bars, and five 8- and 9-bars, or about 60 bars. Therefore, the total time was approximately 1-2 hours. At some point I will likely buy another 500 pack of beads so that I can have 10 of each length for when my kids are learning multiplication. Completing my set will likely take less than an hour.
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Less than $5 in used supplies (I had already bought fishing line and wire for the Montessori “Golden” Beads and only a minimal amount of each was used for this project. I used a 500 pack of faceted, 8 mm, plastic beads of various colors from my local craft store, which cost $2.69 after using a 40% off coupon. I will likely someday buy another pack so that I can have at least 10 of each length bar. A 900 pack of similar beads (Affiliate Link) are available on Amazon for $4.99 presently.)

Materials:

• 500-1000 pack of beads of various colors
• wire (I used a 175 ft spool of 20 gauge galvanized steel wire from the hardware store, but any similar gauge would likely work. I estimate to make 10 of each length bar using 8 mm beads would require less than 25 ft.)

Supplies & Tools:

• small diagonal wire cutters
• needle nose pliers
• ruler

Instructions:

1. First, sort all your beads by color. My variety pack had 12 colors, so I used an egg carton to sort them.
2. Decide which color will represent each length bar, using the most plentiful colors for the largest bars.
3. For each number bar, you could experiment to see what the desired length of wire is, then use a ruler to measure out the desired number of wire pieces for that length. However, I chose to first thread the desired number of beads onto the wire spool.



4. Curl the end of the wire using the tip of the needle nose pliers in order to hold the beads on the wire.



5. Cut the wire leaving an extra length to be curled. For me the ideal extra length was about the length of one bead (or around 1 cm), though this might vary from person to person depending on the tool and technique used to bend the wire.



6. Curl the end of the wire to hold all the beads together.



7. Repeat in order to have bars 2 to 9 beads long, with each length being represented by a different color. Make as many as you can of each length (up to 10) based on the number of beads you have of each color.

I made a special box to hold all my bead material, but they could be stored in a wide variety of ways (including in a Ziploc bag).

There are many things you can do with the colored beads. In addition to letting your child make them into a triangle, you could also use them with Montessori Number Symbol Cards or Seguin Boards.

Click here for more Counting and Number Recognition activities for kids.

Related Links

Montessori Learning Activities
Math Activities
Best Books for Kindergarten

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I briefly looked into purchasing a set, but that turned out to be cost-prohibitive. Undeterred, I decided to try making my own. Unfortunately, I quickly realized I had two options: pretty or cheap. While I really wanted to use perfectly round, hand-painted, wooden beads, I didn’t want to pay that much. Especially, when I wasn’t even sure how well the whole endeavor would work out. Therefore, I decided to go the cheap route. I bought faceted, plastic, 8 mm beads off Amazon in the least expensive color available at the time.

Next, I had a little trouble finding the plastic mesh/canvas that many people use to hold the hundred squares and thousand cubes together. I eventually found some at my local craft store, but by that time I had already made a hundred square by stringing together my ten bars with fishing line. As expected, my fishing line squares ended up floppy. Afterwards, I made one hundred square using the plastic mesh. Next, I spent a day trying to decide which I liked better. Both ways took about the same amount of time. Being a very organized, structured person, the rigidity of the plastic mesh appealed to me.

My husband on the other hand liked the floppy square better saying it was a more interesting object to manipulate. I ended up deciding to go with the floppy squares when my 4 year old squished one of the hundred squares in his hand and asked, “How many is it now?” I was a little surprised it wasn’t obvious to him. However, I was able to convince him that if it was a hundred beads when it was flat, it was still a hundred beads when you folded it in half, or rolled it up, or manipulated it any way you wanted. The floppy squares ended up being more useful conceptually.

The last decision was how many to make. I may add to my collection at some point, but for now, I decided to make 1 thousand cube (mainly just because you only need one to explain the concept of a thousand and they’re obviously very time-consuming to make), 10 hundred squares (to show how the hundreds add together to make a thousand), and 55 ten bars (which allows me to demonstrate 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 all at the same time). Making all of this required 2550 beads. Since I bought 3000 I have 450 left over to use as singles (minus some that my kids lost).

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: For me, it took about 2 minutes to make one ten bar, 25 minutes to make one hundred square, and about 6 hours to make one thousand cube. Since I made 55 ten bars, 10 hundred squares, and 1 thousand cube, all together this took about 12 hours. Really, I worked on this for about 15 minutes a day or so for a couple months.
Difficulty: Fairly easy, but time-consuming. Tying the fishing line was at times a little challenging in poor lighting since it was so thin and hard to see. However, all the steps became fairly mindless after the first few attempts.
Cost: ~$25 (which made 1 thousand cube, 10 hundred squares, 55 ten bars, and 450 leftover single beads.) I already had the wire cutters and pliers, so all I had to buy was fishing line (~$3), wire (~$5) (neither of which I used anywhere close to all of), and beads. I paid about $18 for 3000 beads. The faceted, 8 mm, plastic beads (Affiliate Link) shown in this post were $5.77 for a 1000 pack on Amazon, though the price fluctuates daily. After I purchased my first pack I had to wait a couple weeks for the price to drop before I bought the remaining 2 packs. (I used camelcamelcamel.com to track the price and be notified when my target price of $6 had been reached.) However, I noticed that our local craft store (Michaels) sold similar beads at $4.49 for 500. With a 40% coupon, this would have been an even better deal.

Materials:

• 3000 “golden” beads (or whatever color you choose)
• fishing line (I used 6 lb monofilament fishing line, but any would probably work)
• wire (I used a 175 ft spool of 20 gauge galvanized steel wire from the hardware store, but any similar gauge would likely work. I estimate I used about 85 ft.)

Supplies & Tools:

• small diagonal wire cutters
• needle nose pliers
• ruler
• scissors

Instructions:

To Make Ten Bar
1. You could string the beads first, curl an end, cut, then curl the other end, in order to ensure the wire is the right length. However, I chose to cut the wire first, that way I could do the ten bars in groups of 10, assembly style. First, I cut wire measuring approximately 4″. This was perfect for me based on my 8 mm beads and how I curled the ends, but you’ll want to try it out to find the perfect length for you. Usually I just measured the first one with a ruler, then used that one as a reference to cut a few more.
2. Next I curled one of the ends of wire using the tip of my needle nose pliers.



3. String 10 beads onto the wire.
4. Curl the other end with the needle nose pliers.

To Make Hundred Square

To Make Thousand Cube

With 3000 beads, you will have enough to make 55 ten bars, 10 hundred squares, 1 thousand cube, and still have 450 beads leftover to use as singles (or use Montessori colored beads instead for the single digits). I chose to make a box to hold my Montessori math material.

There are lot of ways to use the “Golden” Beads. You can use the 3-period lesson to introduce the concept of a unit, ten, hundred, and thousand. You can ask your child to bring you a certain number to help with counting. You can also combine the beads with other Montessori math material such as the number symbol cards or Seguin boards.

Click here for more Mathematics activities for kids.

Related Links

Montessori Learning Activities
Math Activities
Best Books for Early Elementary

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I’ve always thought it would be a fun to make a treasure map for my preschooler. What actually motivated me to do it now was that I know a kindergartener who is having a hard time remembering how to identify certain numbers (like 11, 12, and 13). I wanted to come up with a fun way for him to be motivated to remember what each number means. Combining these two ideas worked out better than I imagined. The kids are motivated not only to read the numbers so they can follow the map and find the treasure, but I can actually hide the map itself and get them go through a series of less fun challenges (like matching upper and lower case letters) as a way to earn the map’s location. They also enjoy playing “pirates” with the map and treasure after we were done.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Early Elementary
Time Required ~1 hour first time, ~30 minutes each time after
Difficulty Easy
Cost Less than $5 in used supplies (depending on how elaborate your treasure is)

Materials:

• free, downloadable treasure map document
• contact paper (or laminator)
• pen or marker
• tape (to attach signs to wall)
• tea bag (optional – to make paper look older)
• treasure! (I used a wooden jewelry box with mardi gras beads and fake money, but I don’t think it really matters. My kids would be just as motivated to find gummy snacks or a stuffed animal.)

Supplies & Tools:

• printer
• scissors
• glue

Instructions:

1. 1. Print out free, downloadable treasure map document.
   2. Use contact paper or laminator to laminate 8 signs which are visual clues to follow to find the treasure.
   3. Rip the edges off a blank sheet of paper and crumple it several times.

1. 1. [Optional] Make a cup of tea, then use the tea bag to paint the paper with tea. Let dry. (Drying took approximately 4 hours for me, but could be sped up with a blow dryer or dehydrator.)

1. 1. Decide where you want the child to walk (i.e. down the hallway, around the kitchen island, up the stairs, etc.). I use a rough draft or two to layout my map, so I don’t make mistakes on my “old” paper.

1. 1. Count the number of steps along each leg of the journey. My preschooler takes such small steps, that I generally am practically walking heel to toe when I count steps. I also adjust slightly to include harder numbers on my map (10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 20, etc.). So far I’ve followed along on the treasure hunts to correct along the way where needed, but I think with the visual signs, older kids could do it on their own.
   2. Place the start sign on the floor pointing in the right direction where you want the child to start.
   3. Tape the clue signs on the wall along the way and make a note of where they fall on your map.
   4. Make the final map using a pen or marker on your “old” paper. Cut out and glue the little pictures from the printout to show where the child should look for each of the clues on the journey (i.e. the Cyclops, the mermaids, etc.).

1. Give the child the map and show them where to start. (Or do what I do and hide the map and make them work for the map’s location.)

Click here for more Counting and Number Recognition activities for kids.

Related Links

Homemade Kindergarten Fun
Best Books for Kindergarteners
Pre-K Learning

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