I made a roll and count math mat that can be used with different types of counters. The mat is a grid mat with thirty-five blank squares. I printed the mat on cardstock paper and laminated it.
Children roll the dice and place counters in the same number of squares that is on the dice. Play continues until all squares have been filled. For an extra challenge children can continue to roll the dice and remove the same number of counters until the mat is empty.
We used fine motor counters such as playdough ... pom poms ... and unifix or math linking cubes. Children who used the playdough shaped it in to small balls which can be done either before or during the games.
Those who used the math link cubes snapped together five sets of seven cubes and then broke the cubes off when it was time to place them on the mat. They then snapped them back on when taking them off. You can grab the roll and count math mat pattern below and also see a video of this activity by clicking the image.
roll and count math mat
Those who used the math link cubes snapped together five sets of seven cubes and then broke the cubes off when it was time to place them on the mat. They then snapped them back on when taking them off. You can grab the roll and count math mat pattern below and also see a video of this activity by clicking the image.
roll and count math mat