Hands-On Addition Activity with Stamps

You know those cheap little stamps that you can get in the birthday party aisle? The ones that rarely get used after the first day? Well, we found the perfect use for them! As part of the 21-day “Learn with Your Craft Stash” series, we wanted to use the stamps and ink that were already in our craft supplies to create a learning activity. Create a hands-on addition activity with those party aisle stamps and some number stamps too!

Materials needed for this Hands-On Addition Activity:

Ink pad

Number Stamps

Picture stamps

Paper

I told my first-grader to show me some math problems using the stamps. I demonstrated 1+1=2, so that she would understand what I was talking about.

After that it was all her. I told her to create problems until she ran out of space on the page, but she kept going after she filled up the first page.

I liked this activity because it made Jaida think about how a math fact is put together. She needed to think about where the symbols belong and that changing a symbol would change the outcome.

I was expecting her to just do addition problems, but she got bold with the subtraction symbol and tried out 2-2.

Plus, all she thought she was doing was playing with stamps, but in reality she was learning and expressing her knowledge in a new way.

It can be so easy to put a pencil to paper and write out the problems without really understanding the ‘why’ behind the problem, but using a hands-on activity like this sticks in her mind so much more!

Of course, with bigger kids you could have them show multiplication or division problems with just the numbers and some math symbol stamps.

Or with a smaller child, you could practice counting!

If you have missed any of the activities in the “Learn with Your Craft Stash” series you can find them all by clicking this picture: