Butterfly Counting Pot

A simple butterfly-themed counting activity that could be used for simple addition with older children.

Butterfly counting pot.

What you need:

- to make the butterfly counting pot I decorated a plant pot with butterfly stickers and filled it with brown rice

- the counting sticks are just thick popsicle sticks with a number (1-8) written at the bottom and a 3D butterfly sticker stuck on at the top

- labelled pots 1-8

- some form of counters (I used paper butterflies and butterfly sequins)

The activity:

I started by asking my son to choose a butterfly to pull out of the pot. He then had to identify the number on the bottom of the popsicle stick and find the corresponding number labelled pot. He could then choose that many paper or sequin butterflies to count out and put in the pot. He repeated this process until all of the butterflies had gone from the counting pot. 

As I mentioned, for older children you could ask them to pull two butterflies out at a time and get them to add the numbers and count out that many butterflies into an empty pot, perhaps even then writing their own number label for the pot.

Counting butterflies.

This type of counting activity could be done with any theme. My son enjoyed the surprise element of getting to choose a 'buried butterfly number' and the brown rice provided the perfect reusable material instead of soil.

All done.