Recycle Your Egg Cartons into Math & Sorting Tools!

Decorating eggs for Easter? Hold on to your empty egg cartons and recycle them into math and sorting tools! I'm always trying to find ways to reuse household items -- and I love finding ways to play a learning game that both Miss O and Mr. A can enjoy, on different levels. Read on to learn how we made counting and color coding fun by using egg cartons!

As seen in the lead image of this post, Miss O practiced her addition and subtraction skills by placing balls of play dough into certain numbers slots in the carton, counting them, and then adding them together on paper. (ie: 5 + 6 = 11) Mr. A enjoyed placing the amount of play dough balls in each hole in the carton, to correspond with the number. (ie: 1 ball in the slot numbered "1.") I simply labeled the holes 1-12, gave him plenty of play dough balls, and he practiced counting. He also enjoyed sorting the rainbow of colored balls into separate slots.

Instead of using her fingers to count, Miss O practiced her math skills by counting the play dough balls, learning important concepts, disguised as fun!