Math Activities Using Cubes and Free Printables

I love the versatility of the Spielgaben wooden cubes. They can be used for everything from creating simple, fun designs at the early preschool level to calculating volume at the elementary level. Today, I’m sharing some Montessori-inspired math ideas using the wooden cubes and free printables I found online.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Spielgaben. All opinions are honest and my own. This post also contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

There are many fun and amazing hands-on educational activities in the play guides, worksheets, and inspiration cards that come with the Spielgaben materials. Even though there are so many Spielgaben activities to go with the wooden cubes, I’m sharing some free printables that would also work well with the wooden cubes in Spielgaben boxes 3 and 5. For these Montessori-inspired activities, I placed a number of the wooden cubes into baskets from Montessori Services.

1-5 Number Stair

This activity uses the free Counting Sheet from Teaching Tiny Tots. I printed out the sheet at 105% (so it would be the perfect size for the cubes), cut off the sheet to include only 1-5, and cut off 1″ from the right-hand side. Then everything fit perfectly to use 15 cubes to make a 1-5 number stair. For a child just learning the numbers 1-5, you could hand each cube to the child as you say, “Can you put 1 cube next to the numeral 1?” and so forth.

Cube Number Activity

For this tray, I used Alison’s Montessori sandpaper numerals (DIY sandpaper numerals would work well, too), cube-number cards (from the free Cube Numbers from Simply Kinder), and 13 wooden cubes. I would have the child choose a sandpaper numeral, say the number and trace the sandpaper numeral, find the matching cube number card, and build the numeral with the wooden cubes.

Roll-a-Tower Game

The Roll-a-Tower Game uses the free printable Building Number Sense K-2 from Oregon State. I especially like cooperative games for young children, and this would be an easy game to play cooperatively. My post “How to Use Cooperative Games to Teach Sportsmanship” gives ideas of ways to play a game like this cooperatively.

Shape Puzzles

The shape puzzles were also from Building Number Sense K-2 from Oregon State. These aren’t sized exactly for the Spielgaben cubes, which makes the puzzles more challenging. The child would need to create the puzzle shapes off the cards.

Building Paper Cubes

Building paper cubes is a great way for children to get a hands-on understanding of cubes. The printable at the top is Creating 3-D Shapes: Solid Nets with Tabs – Cube from Math Worksheets 4 Kids. I added a wooden cube to the tray just to reinforce the idea of what a cube is. This is a good activity for cutting and folding practice as well. You could add either glue or tape to the tray, depending on which you’d prefer your child or students to use. I added free dice printables from some of my previous activities: “Montessori-Inspired Dinosaur Fun with Printables, Water Beads, and Glass Gems,” “Montessori-Inspired April Showers Activities,” and “Montessori-Inspired Fire Safety Activities Using Free Printables.” This could be a fun way for a child to make learning activities for younger siblings. The plain cube could be an art activity if a child wants to decorate it.

Cubes “Cube” Tray

I love this activity for learning cubes. It uses the free Learn the Cubes: Make a Cubes Cube printable from My Favorite Kind of Crazy. I like the idea of printing it on a variety of colors of cardstock so a child can make different colored cubes.

Earlier Posts Using Spielgaben Cubes

Build-a-Cube Activity (from my original Spielgaben review)

This was from one of the Spielgaben worksheets. It could be further cut apart so the child could place the stages of building a cube in the proper order. This activity is great for both mathematical awareness and fine-motor development.

Using 3-D Shapes to Make a Birthday Cake (from last month’s birthday activities post)

This activity is from the Spielgaben Playguide Part 1. I appreciate the way these sorts of activities help children develop their spatial reasoning skills.

Dump Truck Counting Activity

The dump truck counting activity (and link to the free printable) is from my June post at PreK + K Sharing: “Montessori-Inspired Construction Vehicle Activities Using Free Printables.”

UPDATE:

Special deal for my readers!

All My Spielgaben Posts

Many of these include links to free printables! (Click on an image to go to the related blog post. The gallery is ordered according to publication date with my latest post at the top.)

Version 4 of Spielgaben Educational Toys 

I highly recommend Spielgaben as an amazing educational material for home or school. Even though the toys aren’t inexpensive, they’re definitely worth the price because of the high quality of materials and number of years your children or students can use them.

Special deal for my readers!