A Halloween Subitizing & Counting Game

A handful of dry lima beans can become a playful early-math activity for perfect for preschool, prek and kindergarten age children.

Subitizing is the ability to recognize how many objects are in a small group without counting each one individually (like when you look at dice). Children build this skill through repeated opportunities to notice, compare, count, and talk about different quantities.

What You’ll Need

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• Acrylic markers
• Dry lima beans – I would get at your dollar store or grocery store
• Clear plastic cups
• Felt squares
• A five-frame or ten-frame (this is the one I’m using from Aimee Salazar)

Teacher tip: Place a felt square inside the bottom of each cup or underneath the cup to soften the sound of the beans shaking and being dumped.

Prepare the Beans

Use acrylic markers to decorate one side of each dry lima bean.
For the ghosts – I did one side in white using the acrylic markers. For the pumpkins, I pained both sides orange.

Painting tip: do half a lima bean and let dry. Then do the other half. These acrylic markers dry really fast, so making them does not take a lot of time.

For the ghost game, draw a simple ghost face on one side and leave the other side blank. You will want to do 10 beans for a set.

For the jack-o’-lantern game, add different pumpkin faces. Make ten beans for each set.

Allow the beans to dry completely before placing them in the cups or you will have a mess.

Game One: Shake and Count

For beginners, I start with five beans you could also do six (similar to using a dice). Put the beans inside a clear plastic cup.

1. Shake the cup. I preteach how we don’t have to shake hard, it’s more of a swirl.
2. Gently dump the cup so the beans spread across the felt piece.
3. Ask, “How many ghosts can you see?”
4. Give children time to look before they begin counting….see if they can tell you without counting (this is subitizing!).
5. Count the visible ghosts together to check.
6. Start all over and shake again and compare the new amount.

Because the ghost is only drawn on one side of each bean, a different number may appear after every shake.

Try asking:

• How many ghosts do you see?
• How did you know?
• Did you know right away, or did you count?
• Are there more ghosts or blank beans?
• How many beans are hiding their ghosts?
• What do you think we might see after the next shake?

Game Two: Add a Ten-Frame

Place beans in a cup and put a ten-frame nearby. You can do this with 5 or 10 beans.

1. Shake the cup and gently pour out the beans.
2. Choose a small group of jack-o’-lanterns.
3. Place them onto the ten-frame, filling each space from left to right.
4. Ask children how many they see before counting.
5. Count together to check.
6. Add or remove a pumpkin and talk about what changed.

You can also call out a number and invite a child to place that many jack-o’-lanterns on the frame.

Try asking:

• How many spaces are filled?
• How many spaces are empty?
• How many more pumpkins would fill the frame?
• What happens if we add one more?
• What happens if we take one away?
• Can you show the same number in a different arrangement?

What Children Are Learning

This simple activity supports:

• Subitizing
• One-to-one correspondence
• Counting and cardinality
• Number recognition
• Comparing quantities
• Understanding more, less, and the same
• Five-frame and ten-frame awareness
• Left to right (a pre-reading skill)
• Early addition and subtraction
• Visual attention
• Turn-taking and mathematical language

The goal is not to make children answer quickly. It is to give them time to notice number patterns and explain what they see. When children say, “I saw three and two more,” they are beginning to understand how numbers can be composed of smaller groups.

Ways to Use It

Set the game out as an independent math center, use it with a small group, or bring it to circle time for a quick shake-and-count challenge. At home, family members can take turns shaking the cup and guessing how many will appear.

Keep it playful. Shake, notice, wonder, and count together.

Safety Note

Dry lima beans are small objects and may present a choking hazard. This activity is intended for children who can safely use small manipulatives and must be closely supervised by an adult. Do not use it with children who still mouth classroom materials.

🌱 Stay rooted. Guide wonder.