Must Have Manipulatives for Preschool to Kindergarten

There are SO many wonderful resources out there to have in your home for your children, whether you plan to homeschool or just work with your children outside of school… it can get overwhelming with all the choices! I’ve made a list of our absolute favorite manipulatives that we use all the time for our littles.

These are also great for older kids, but I’m focusing on what we use a lot for Bird & Bear. They are currently 5 and almost 3! Can you believe that? When I’m working on school work with the older kids, sometimes pulling these out can help keep the younger two entertained until I can focus on playing and working with them!

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*Now, please note that some of these manipulatives have small pieces. I always supervise my littles with these as they can be choking hazards!

1. Three Bear Family Counters – First up are these colorful bear counters! These come in three different sizes and four different colors, you can sort them by size, by color, by both or create patterns. Now the set I purchased is larger and has extra colors, but this is the perfect starter set. And extra bonus… these are on sale right now!
2. Wooden Pattern Blocks/Tangrams – These are so fun, you can find these in all different kinds of materials : wooden, heavy duty plastic, magnet, foam, etc. I prefer the wooden, they are super sturdy and a little thicker than the alternatives. What I really love is that you can find so many patterns on Pinterest to print – we have printed and laminated ABC pattern pages, 123 pattern pages, even different shapes and pictures. Bear especially loves playing with these!
3. Melissa & Doug Sort and Snap Color Match – This snap color activity is super fun, there are several colorful pictures to choose from. You can choose the colorful side of the pictures and match the colors up, or you can choose the black and white side and create your own colorful creation. I like that the snaps are a little tough to push through, it makes the task take a little longer and they are great for fine motor skills!
4. Number Puzzle Boards & Pegs – I have loved using these for all the kids when they start learning to count and to identify numbers 1-10. They have to patch the number puzzle piece with the hole punched piece that matches, and then count the pegs to place in the hole punched piece. I love that it has multiple steps to complete for each number and again, helps with fine motor skills.
5. Handwriting Without Tears Wooden Pieces (Capital Letters) – Now, keep in mind that these are a little more expensive than the other manipulatives. However I will link some alternatives at the end of this description. We have this set and we love using them for our ABC practice daily. Bird is working on her ABC identification, sounds and formation and these have been such a big help. Bubby also used these after I saw how well it helped him in occupational therapy. You can find alternatives in a lower price HERE and HERE.
6. Jumbo Tweezers – Last but not least! Now, this may seem like a strange manipulative to list, but stay with me. My kids LOVE sensory bins. We’ve made bins with rice, beans, pom pom balls, water beads, you name it… they LOVE using these tweezers to pick up special prizes hidden in their sensory bins. We made one with beans and hid ABC magnets, they had to use the tweezers to fish around the beans to find the letter I called out to them. So fun!

That’s it! Those are our absolute favorite manipulatives to use with our littles (and sometimes the big kids too!) What are your favorite manipulatives to use with your children?