Halloween Math Game for Young Kids – Topple Tree Math
Happy Halloween! I love it when we do an activity spur of the moment, and that is just what happened today with this Halloween Activity, called a Halloween Topple Tree Math Game. You can use it to practice counting, addition or subtraction.
It's rainy in Chicago this Halloween morning and we were just vegging out. One can only take so many Halloween cartoons, especially since they have been airing them all month.
I recently saw a really fun looking activity from our friends at Coffee Cups and Crayons, she called it a topple math tree game. I knew this rainy day needed a fun Halloween game and this was perfect, we even had everything we needed!
It was super simple to set up, I actually used the spooky Halloween pipe cleaner tree tutorial from Play Trains.
When you finish your tree you can decide how tipsy to make it. I bent some of our roots up a bit to be sure it would topple over. I was surprised at home many plastic rings it took to make it topple! CC&C taped their topple tree to some paper but we didn't end up taping ours, I think our plastic rings weighed less than their paper clips…any maybe I went a little heavy on the pipe cleaners, so you can adjust that based on your materials.
Coffee Cups and Crayons have some fun math variations for playing their topple tree math game, whereas we just took turns rolling the dice and adding that many rings. Whoever toppled it lost. But I like the other ways to play and we will remember it as we get to more complex math!
Halloween Math Games for Young Kids
Ways to Play Include:
- Roll one or two die and practice counting the dots on the die, then practice matching the number by adding that number of spiders.
- Roll two dice, add the numbers and place that name spiders on the Halloween tree.
- Roll two dice, subtract the smaller number from the bigger one, add that many spiders.
- Spider war! Each player rolls one die. Whoever rolls the larger number wins, and they are safe. The person who rolls the smaller number has to add the number of spiders on the die.
When you are done you have a fun Halloween tree for decorations, or you can untwist them and reuse them for your next project.
I also love this colorful rainbow pipe cleaner tree activity from our friends at School Time Snippets and I could see us using that one for math too!
If you get a ridiculous amount of Halloween rings this year this would be a great use for them. We used a whole bag! Low prep, reusable materials, sneak in some math. Win-win!
Related Indoor Halloween Activity: 12+ Halloween Shrinky Dinks Ideas
What fun are you up to this Halloween? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!
Originally published in 2015. Updated in 2023.
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