Apple-Themed Skip Counting Activity

It starts in August…you see apples popping up everywhere.  Apple spice lattes, apple decor, and with the start of school, lots and lots of kids apple learning activities.

When it comes to apple activities for kids, this skip counting activity with apples is perfect for preschool and kindergarten.  

Practicing skip counting helps kids in math later on when they start working on multiplication and division facts.    We also had fun with this outdoor skip counting activity.

Skip Counting Activity with Apples

You can make your very own apple-themed math manipulatives with plastic bottle caps and a black permanent marker.    (You can also do lots of fun apple-themed math activities with pom-poms.) 

Plastic bottle caps and lids are super handy when it comes to inexpensive learning materials.  I have a small box where I toss them until I want to use them for something.  

For this apple math activity, you will want to use bottle caps that are red, green, and yellow to match the colors of apples.  (If you can’t find caps in those colors, the caps can be spray painted red.)

Don’t have a big lid collection?  You could also cut apples from cardstock.  Draw simple circle apples and your child can even help cut them out for some built-in scissor practice!

To create manipulatives for skip counting, determine what your child needs to work on.  

I decided to make one set of apples to practice counting by 5’s up to 100 because both of my kids were working on this.  I simply wrote the numbers on the lids with a black permanent marker (5, 10, 15…)   

Of course, you could make a set to work on counting by 2’s, 10’s, or any other number as well.  And, you don’t have to go all the way to 100, or you could make your set go further.  

Make this skip counting activity fit the needs of your individual child.

There are several ways you can use your “apples.”  

First, have your child put them in order to practice skip counting.  

Then, try setting up the numbers in order and removing some of the plastic bottle caps.  

Have your child tell you which numbers need to go in the empy spots.  

You can also use the lids to practice skip counting backwards.

Want to make it more challenging?

You can throw in some random numbers that would not be used when counting by 5’s, such as “12.”

More Apple Themed Skip Counting Activities for Kids

Add some movement to the activity by placing the “apples” around the house and have your child “pick them” in the correct order.

Use the apples to work on comparisons.  On a white board draw a greater than/less than sign and have them choose two apples to put on the white board to make the greater than/less than statement true.

Like this idea?

You might want to check out our other apple-themed learning activities!

• Apple-Themed CVC Word Scavenger Hunt
• Apple Tasting
• Apple-Scented Bubble Dough