Gumdrop Count and Clip Cards

With the holiday season approaching, one of my favorite themes is often gingerbread. There is just something about gingerbread-related  activities that can make holiday learning so fun for students! Since they loved our gingerbread ten frame printables so much, I knew my kids would love these gumdrop count and clip cards too. They are a great holiday activity for working on counting sets to 20 with your Pre-K or Kindergarten kids.

Getting Ready

Clip cards are some of my favorite activities because they are so simple to prep!

I just printed out the few pages of cards, laminated them to keep them sturdy and reusable, and then added a small basket of clothespins.

That’s it! I had my math center ready to go.

Gumdrop Count and Clip Cards

When I introduce new math centers to my students, I typically play them with small groups first.

However, since my kids are so familiar with clip cards, I was able to introduce this activity whole group and let them give it a try independently during math workshop time.

These cards are not only festive for the holiday season, but they really do give kids the chance to build up some important math skills!

I noticed many of my kids subitizing the smaller sets of gumdrops, or knowing the totals without having to count them one by one.

For the larger totals, it was a little harder, but it still gave them practice with skills like counting on and beginning addition… Yes, all in a clip card!

For example, on the clip card for 17 gumdrops, one student said the top two rows looked like a ten frame, so the counted on from 10. What a great strategy!

Students kept counting and clipping until all of the gumdrops from 1-20 had been counted and all of the cards had been clipped.

Grab Your Download

Are you ready to count some gumdrops with your kids too? Grab some clothespins and download your copy of the gumdrop count and clip cards by clicking the button below. Then hop over and snag our ten frame printables and gumdrop pattern cards too!