Autumn Apple Match and Sort Early Maths Activity

Are you looking for a simple idea to start teaching your child number sense and maths? Then this apple match and sort activity using mini-erasers is a great activity that you can set up and explore alongside your child. So here you go apple match and sort.

Matching and Sorting Activities

Did you know that before children count they need to recognise objects that are the same and different?

Matching them together and then sorting them out.

Knowing what are the same leads to grouping them and sorting them which then can be identified as having more or less of something than others.

Apple Manipulatives

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Whether you are having an apple week, focusing on the letter A or an autumn/fall-themed month including some apple manipulatives for number work and maths is a great idea.

We have used a set of apple mini-erasers that our friend in the USA sent us but a set like these Learning Resources Apples (US Amazon, UK Amazon) would also work as well. You could also create some paper ones but younger toddlers and preschoolers may find them difficult to pick up.

Apple Match and Sorting Activity

Depending on the age of your child you may want to start with 2 or 3 different variations of the apples.

You could use red vs green, or red, green, and yellow apples then it’s time to match.

Check out even more Apple Activities for Learning with Preschoolers here!

Toddlers and Young Preschoolers

With your little ones lets match the pairs, pick out 2 matching apples from your collection i.e. 2 red and 2 green.

Then lay them out and ask your little one to find the matching ones. Use language like

• Which 2 are the same?
• Can you find the one that matches this one?
• Is there another one like this?

As they get the idea you can then introduce the 3rd one and they can match the 3 pairs together.

By starting out just changing the colour and only using 2 to match the pairs you have a simple activity that you can focus on doing alongside your little one.

Preschooler Apple Match

Once they have the hand of matching the pairs introduce more and find all the ones that are the same.

Hold up one and ask to find the same, the ones that match and find the odd one out.

Apple Sorting for Preschoolers

You will find that they naturally start to move the apples that match into piles of the same this is sorting.

A small basket, even a picture of a basket may help them place them.

As they start to sort them into piles start with equal numbers – they are all the same.

Then vary them so some piles have More than and some have Less than others make it really noticeable at first and slowly get it closer and closer to equal.

Moving on from Apple Matching and Sorting

If your confident that your child gets the matching and sorting activities then it’s time to work on numbers.

Our FREE Apple Tree Playdough Counting Mats are ideal for the next step and although we’ve used playdough you can easily use the same apple manipulatives that we used.

You can also make your own math tray for your little ones. We made these apple tree math centres to work on counting out numbers 1 to 5 on our apple trees and kept it out all week.

Our Apple Counting Book Recommendation

Want to read alongside this activity then we recommend this Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins (US Amazon, UK Amazon) as a great apple and counting book to share with your toddler and preschoolers.

More Apple Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Have a look at some of these other fun ideas for apples to play and learn with your toddlers and preschoolers