I live in a city that gets an average of 118 rainy days per year. If you’re doing the math, that’s almost a third of the year. Now with two young kids at home, I spend a LOT of time thinking about rainy day activities.

Number Line Hop is one of our favorite rainy day activities because it gets my kiddos moving indoors and, no matter how they choose to play, they’re getting exposed to some BIG number sense concepts.

We start by taping out this 0 to 10 number line on the kitchen floor with painter’s tape.

🤔 Why a number line? Seeing numbers laid out in a linear format (like a number line) is a great way to help children visualize the relationships between numbers... My kiddos think we’re just hopping around in the kitchen, but what I know is we’re planting all kinds of number relationships seeds as they physically move up and back on a number line. For example, if my son is standing on 4 and I say to jump forward 2 more, he makes the connection that 2 more than 4 is 6. In time, children will begin to visualize the order of numbers which supports mental math strategies down the road.

Some Possible Ways to Play:

1️⃣ Start at 0 and talk about how many jumps each number is from 0 (1 jump to go from 0 to 1, 2 jumps from 0 to 2...)

2️⃣ Pick any number on the number line and stand there. Then move to the number that is one more. Repeat with one less. (If one more and one less become too easy, try two more and two less)

3️⃣ For an older child (kindergarten and up), practice addition and subtraction on the number line. For example, 5 + 3 could be solved by standing on 5 and then moving forward (up) 3 more to get to 8. For a preschool child, use the language of “more” and “less” on the number line rather than “plus” and “minus” yet. “More” and “less” are words that make sense to them and will help them better understand what the words “plus” and “minus” mean when they’re formally introduced in kindergarten.

And, remember, no matter how your children play, simply laying out the numbers in this linear format is helping them see and begin to visualize it for themselves!