One Activity, Many Ways: Muffin Tin & Counters | San Antonio Baby Sign Language Classes

Time for another installment of my favorite feature: "One Activity, Many Ways"! As I mentioned last time, my main goal with learning activities for my students (and my own girls) is to be able to create a large number of learning games with the same materials. We just don't have the space for 100 games in our home!

One of my signing class students' favorite things to play with is this simple muffin tin. It's small enough that it fits into my center basket with ease and it stores without taking up a ton of space. And it makes a fun metal sound when they drop something heavy into it!

This week, I paired the muffin tin with my set of animal counters (similar). I have had these counters FOREVER and they are still in great shape. There are five colors and five types of animals (bears, dogs, cats, turtles, and dinosaurs).

Many times when I include these items in a student center, I will leave it open ended. It's fun to see how students choose to play with the materials.

Lots of times, children will sort by color all on their own!

Or sometimes, they will sort by animal type!

You can guide their play by putting simple colored circles in each of the sections for children to match.

Or, if you're working on counting, you could put numbers in each section.

Of course, one of my favorite ways to play (with older children), is to work on sight words. You can either write color or number words on a neutral piece of paper or use a transitional clue by using colored markers or drawing dots for numbers.

Can you think of other ways to encourage play with a muffin tin and animal counters? Share below!