House Number Sorting Activity

There are not many learning activities that engage my 3 year old for a long period of time. Unless it involves moving, she’s often done in a few minutes. Pretend play is a completely different story. She loves developing stories and acting out scenes with her toys. Delivering mail was my inspiration for our house number sorting activity. It incorporates the pretend play element she loves with number recognition, counting, and one to one correspondence. I get commissions for purchases made through affiliate links in this post.

House Number Sorting Activity

We started by building the paper houses. This was a fun craft for the two of us while little brother was napping. I created number cards and used a variety of numbered objects. Use whatever you have available.

Here’s what we used:

• Colored cardstock
• Glue (we used glue sticks)
• Tape
• Markers
• Stamps (we used the Melissa & Doug Rainforest Stamp Set)
• Index cards (or more cardstock)
• Stickers
• Rocks
• Chalkboard blocks ($3 from the Target dollar spot)
• Colored craft sticks (ours were sent to us by CraftProjectIdeas.com)
• Glow in the dark stars
• Milk caps

I used cardstock to cut out squares and triangles. I taped the triangles to the top of the squares to make a super simple paper house.

While I made the “official” houses for the number sorting activity, I let Lily make whatever she wanted with the paper. At first, she colored and stamped. Eventually, she built houses, too. (You might have caught our creations in my Instagram story last week.) She also helped me stamp the animals on my houses. I folded paper boxes to attach to the houses. The boxes will become the compartments that will hold the delivered numbers. You could use plastic bins bowls, or cardboard boxes as well.

Next, we need numbered items to deliver. I chose to work on the numbers 1-5. I cut index cards in half. I used different ways to represent the numbers – dots, stamps, and stickers.

I also wrote numbers on a variety of objects. I thought my daughter would enjoy delivering them to the houses more than the paper cards. She especially liked the number rocks – leftover from our painted penguin rocks from a few years ago.

We lined up the houses and practiced counting them. Then, we pointed at each number and said its name.

We went through the number cards first. I showed her how to match the card to the house. She placed the card in the box behind the correct house.

I thought she was getting bored half way through the cards and would soon be ready to move on to the tangible objects, but she surprised me. She liked counting the dots, stamps, and stickers, too.

Once we finished the number cards, we moved onto the other objects. We worked on one group of objects at a time. You could also mix these up.

Choose an object and say the number on it.

Then, deliver it to the correct house.

After Lily finished delivering all of the numbers, she asked if she could do it all over again. This number sorting activity was such a great way for us to work on number skills.

More Preschool Math Activities

• Construction Site Build and Count – Practice number recognition and counting while building with blocks
• Dinosaur Number Maze – Help the dinosaurs navigate the maze of numbers
• Star Counting Activity – Use star stickers to practice counting

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