3 Free Printable Counting Math Games for Kids Who Love Unicorns

Are you looking for a super engaging math center? One that can teach one to one correspondence, counting skills, addition and subtraction? All without additional time and prep work? These exciting unicorn counting math games are fantastic! They will get your preschoolers, kindergartners, and even first graders excited about math time.

And the best part for you, as the teacher, is that ALL of these activities can be prepped in less than five minutes.

Leaving you more time to relax or search for more unicorn activities….

What’s included in the Free Printable Unicorn Counting Math Game?

• 3 full color Unicorn counting grids for 10, 20 and 100
• 3 black and white Unicorn math counting grids for 10, 20 and 100
• 2 sets of differentiated instruction cube inserts

So many ways to differentiate your math centers with a simple low-prep math printable.

Prepare the Unicorn Math Counting Game:

If you adore sitting at your desk preparing lessons for hours with no end in sight, this counting grid set is not for you.

You may also need an intervention. 

These unicorn counting math games are great because you can just print and play.

I prefer to laminate when possible because my special needs kindergarten daughter tends to get very “involved” with her activities. They definitely don’t last as long when she is moving them, twisting, tearing, crumpling, or throwing them on the floor.

Now, I’m sure that all the students that you teach never have a bad day, never have meltdowns, or just don’t want to listen….

Maybe not.

Anyway, I love my laminator. It was totally worth the investment because it laminates about 10x as fast as some more popular laminators. So, I kind of love any excuse to use it.

I might need an intervention. Or more things to laminate.

If you don’t love to laminate as much as I do (I have my laminating pouches on a scheduled order through Amazon Prime), you can use a write and wipe pocket. Just slip the unicorn counting grids into a write and wipe pocket during the activity. Then store in a manila folder when you are finished using it in your math centers.

Printing the Counting Math Games for Unicorn Fans

If you can’t print in color or need to save ink, you can print the black and white version. Color it in and laminate or print one for each student to use during small groups.

You will also want to laminate the dice inserts so they will last a long time.

You’ll notice that there are two sets of differentiated instruction cube inserts included. One is a traditional dice set and goes from 1-6. That set of cube inserts is great for the counting grids for 20 and 100.

If you don’t have Differentiated Instruction Cubes, I highly recommend that you get some right away. Because there are SO many ways that you can use them. Like with our coordinating Unicorn Roll and Count math game. You can also swap out the super cute unicorn dice between activities depending on your students’ needs.

When you are working with the unicorn math grid for counting to 10, switch out the inserts and use the set that only includes the numbers 1-3. This will make the activity last just a little bit longer.

Not too long since preschoolers and kindergarteners are not known for their long attention span.

Using the Unicorn Counting Grids for 10, 20 and 100

To play the counting math game, students roll the die. Then they’ll identify the number shown on the die and cover that many spaces on the grid.

Preschool level: The purpose of the counting is not actually to count to 10, 20 or 100. Rather, it’s to repetitively count to 3, 6, or even 10 if you have a 10-sided die.

I love this set of dice because it offers a wide variety of counting opportunities. <<<

Hands-on Addition Activity

Kindergarten level: Have the student count how many unicorn manipulatives they are placing on the grid as they roll. Then have them re-count ALL of the manipulatives that are on the grid so far.

For example, here’s what to do if they have 5 manipulatives on the grid and then roll a 3. They would place 3 additional manipulatives  on the math grid, counting 1-2-3 as they go. Then, they would start at the beginning and count the total of the math manipulatives that are on the counting grid 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.

This is a great way to introduce math manipulatives. 

As the student progresses in understanding, you can have them keep a list of addition problems on a piece of paper. Instead of manually counting each manipulative, you can have the student write down the number of manipulatives that they currently have on the grid game. Then they can create an addition problem with the new number that is rolled.

Easy Subtraction Activity for First Grade

First Grade Level: You can begin to teach math manipulatives concepts in the same way that the unicorn grid game is used for addition.

However, start by filling the grid game with math manipulatives. Then have the student remove the correct number of math manipulatives as they roll the die.