- Age Guideline: 2 Years and Up
- Time Required: 20 minutes (Does not include drying time)
The above age and time guidelines are estimates. This project can be modified to suit other ages and may take more or less time depending on your circumstances.
Materials Needed:
Instructions:
The number of craft sticks you will want will depend on what number concepts you want to work on. For the youngest kids 10 will do, as they master that you can add more.
Have the kids paint the craft sticks. Offer them 4 different colors of paint and have them paint their sticks each a solid color. They should paint one side of the stick, allow it to dry and then paint the other side. Instruct them to color at least one stick each color, but preferably paint each color onto a different number of sticks. For example, 1 red stick, 2 blue stick, 3 yellow sticks, and 4 green sticks. If kids want different combinations, that is fine too.
Once all the paint is dry, take the sticks outside or to a well ventilated area and spray them with clear acrylic spray. Let one side dry and then spray the other. This will protect the sticks from chipping and scratching.
While the kids are waiting for the sticks to dry, they can paint or decorate a container to store them in. Perhaps a juice can, tin can, etc.
Kids can practice a variety of math skills using these sticks: they can sort the sticks by color, count them, add or subtract different color/numbers (for example, how much is red plus blue), place the piles of sticks in order from fewest to most, count by 2s, separate the piles by even or odd numbers, and so on.
