This super simple activity only requires two things: connecting blocks and colored plastic cups. I used connecting counting cubes from Walmart that I purchased for five dollars. The cups I used were from IKEA, and they were $1.99/6 cups.

My daughter is big into collecting and sorting right now. I was struggling to find a quiet activity to do one day while her brother was napping, and then discovered that this was perfect.

There are so many different activities you can do with these blocks, and all of them build cognitive, fine motor and language skills.

Activities

Colour Matching

Using the IKEA cups, have your child sort the blocks by color. Have them name each color as it’s being deposited into the cup. In addition to baking the colour, count how many blocks are being placed in each cup as well.

Patterning

Take the blocks and create a simple pattern. Challenge your child to do the same. This will build on fine motor, problem solving and patterning skills.

Basic Math

Teaching basic addition and subtraction from a young age can be simple while using these blocks. Simply count out a series of blocks, remove one at a time and have them tell you the difference. Way!

Hopefully these three ideas for the counting cubes help you come up b with more quiet and educational activities. What other ways can you think to use them? Let me know below. Thanks for reading!