Counting Activities for Kids: Counting at Home [Free Printable]

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Opportunities for counting activities are all around us. Here is a free printable that kids can use to count some common items in their homes.

One of the easiest ways to practice counting with kids is to count objects in their world.

On the playground, they can count steps on the slide. On the way home from school, they can count stop signs. At school, they can count the doors in the hallway. There are opportunities for counting and math activities all around us.

Counting at Home

Here is a counting activity that kids can easily do at home. I just updated this printable to add an extra page. It now includes two pages, for twice the amount of fun!

Kids can walk around their homes to find and count all of the doors, windows, tables, beds, mirrors, sinks, etc. This is a great page to send home when parents are asking for activity ideas.

You can also use it as a holiday or summer break activity, a rainy day activity, or during a pandemic quarantine. Ha….I never could have imagined that I would type the last part of that sentence!

How to Use the Activity

Print one of the pages for your kids and put it in a clipboard. Tell your kids to put their explorer clothes on and send them on a mission to find and count all of the items listed on the page.

Kids can write the quantity in the squares provided on each page. This is a great way to practice writing and recognizing numbers.

You can also show kids how to make tally marks to record their results.

Provide crayons so that kids can color the pictures as they find them. Using crayons is a great way to work on fine motor skills development.

Increase the Level of Difficulty

If you want to increase the difficulty you can make the activity as challenging as you want.

Doors- Advanced explorers can count kitchen cabinet doors and furniture doors in addition to large doors.
Windows – Challenge advanced explorers to count window panes instead of just windows.
Beds – Are there any doll beds in your house? Don’t forget those.
Lamps – Challenge advanced explorers to include ceiling lights in addition to just lamps.
Chairs – You may include upholstered chairs, desk chairs, and doll chairs in addition to kitchen chairs.

Additional Activity Ideas

Make an Estimate – Before searching and counting the items listed on a page, ask your kids to guess how many of those items they will find. Is the actual number more or less than their estimate? Were you surprised?

Counting Game – Give a different counting page to two kids. Ask them each to go around and count each of the items on their pages. Help them add the numbers together on each page. Who found more items?

Counting at School

If you want to use this math printable for a classroom activity, you can ask kids to count the items in a dollhouse or in a picture book. They can also use it as a pre-planning worksheet as they prepare to build a house from building bricks or blocks. Encourage kids to create their own counting worksheets or little books to count objects around the school.