Math with a Rainbow Abacus - FUN Spring Activity for Kindergarten

Looking for a fun, educational spring activities for kindergarten? Make your own rainbow abacus to help toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, and first grade students practice counting wiht a abacus activity. This rainbow activity for kids doubles as both a rainbow craft and a hands-on rainbow math where children will work on counting. We used our to count to 10, count to 50, count to 70, count to 100, and as a skip counting activity too. Plus this Rainbow activities for kindergarten is easy to make with common craft supplies!

Abacus Activity

Spring is just around the corner! Finally!!! That means we get more sunshine, trips to the park, and rainbow crafts and playful rainbow activities for kids. This Rainbow Math is a fun way for toddlers, preschoolers, kindergartners, and grade 1 students to practice not only counting, but skip counting. This abacus activity is perfect for working on counting to 10, from 1-70, and by 10s. Plus it makes such a pretty spring activity for kindergartners too!

Whether you are a parent looking for a spring math activity, a teacher looking for a fun math center in your classroom, or a homeschooler looking to add an engaging activity to supplement your homeschool math – this this the perfect project to choose!

You need a few common craft supplies to make this DIY Abacus:

pipe cleaners (one each in all the rainbow colors)
pony beads (10 in each color to coordinate with pipe cleaners)
white playdough
surface (to affix your project too like an art tray)

Rainbow activity for kids

You need one of each of the following pipe cleaners in order and cut them at an angle so that the purple pipe cleaner is cut the shortest and the red pipe cleaner is not cut at all.

purple
lilac or dark blue
light blue
green
yellow
orange
red

Rainbow Math

Now put 10 coordinating color beads on each of the pipe cleaners.

Rainbow activities for kindergarten

Now put a blob of playdough on a surface (we used these art trays) and stick one side of the pipe cleaner in the dough in order. Now put another blob of playdough on the surface and stick the other end of the pipe cleaners in the other side.

You may need to trim additional pipe cleaners to get them to lay correctly.

Spring activities for kindergarten

Younger children can just count each color to reinforce counting from 1-20.

Kindergarten and 1st grade kids can count all the way from 1-70 by ones and then count by 10s.
This is such a fun way for kids to practice counting by 10s.

HINT: With other children use this to help them conceptualize skip counting. Put 2 beads on each color. Then you can count by 2’s. Next put 5 beads on each color and skip count by 5’s. This is such a great visual for kids to understand skip counting!

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