Fun and easy counting bears sensory table for toddlers

Counting bears are a great way to start teaching your child how to count. This sensory table activity will help them with counting, color matching, and work on their fine motor skills. My boys loved this sensory activity and I hope your kids do as well.

I have a Bachelor degree in elementary education and even taught school for three years. I have loved putting together these learning activities for my boys. I know they will help prepare them for when they start school. I researched a lot of different toys to help teach kids the alphabet. Check out my blog post with some of the best alphabet learning toys.

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Counting Bears Sensory Table

I’m so excited to share this counting bears sensory table activity with you. It’s a great way for your child to learn how to count, learn their colors, and work on their fine motor skills. I enjoy putting these sensory activities for my kids to help them get a head start in learning. I hope your kids enjoy it as much as my boys did!

Why Counting is Important

It’s great if your child can count to 10, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they could bring you 10 bears if you asked them. The first step is learning to count from memory and then understanding the quantity that each number represents. It’s an important step in teaching your child to learn about numbers by having them physically move objects to count. Thats why this activity is so great. When they place the bears with each number they start to learn that 1:1 correspondence which means they start understanding that every object can only be counted once. This is a great activity for learning how to count.

What you need

Colored Counting Bears
Rice
Sensory spoon or grabbers
Painters Tape
Counting bear cards (see below)
Ikea Sensory Table (link below)

Link to Counting Bears

PDF Counting Bear Cards (Free Download)

Counting-bear-cards DOWNLOAD COUNTING BEAR CARDS HERE

How to do the activity

This is a great way to start teaching your child how to count and work on their fine motor skills. I put rice in one bin mixed with the counting bears and then place painters tape in a lot of different directions over the top. This makes it a little more difficult for your child to grab the bears and it adds another level of fine motor skill. You can start without the tape and then add it later for more difficulty. I like to tape the cards onto the table so they don’t move as the child places the bears on top.

Make sure to sit next to them as they do the activity and count aloud. You can show them how to do it at first and then practice with them. You can flip the board over and tape the remaining cards to the other side once they have finished this side.

Where my sensory table is from

The sensory table is from Ikea and its called Flisat. The bins that fit inside are also from Ikea and they are called Trofast storage box. The bins and stools that go with the table are sold separately. If you want to buy just the table it’s $49.99. This table is always out of stock and it took me a couple months of checking often to finally get it. I made sure to sign up for the email notification so when it came back in stock I would get an alert on my phone. This was the only way I was able to finally buy one. Make sure to check in often with your local Ikea store.