Egg Carton Christmas Tree Math Puzzle

We crafted a Christmas Tree Puzzle from a recycled egg carton which resulted in several math activities for our kids!

Our Playful Preschool theme this week is Evergreen Trees. You can always find our posts on Wednesdays by searching #playfulpreschool via social media! We made our Christmas tree puzzle with a large square egg tray but you could use two egg cartons. We cut the carton into increasing lengths then painted the pieces green.

The first math challenge for our kids was to put the pieces in order from longest to shortest. We used the words long, short, count, measure, and length as we worked. 

Our preschooler then stacked the pieces to form our Christmas tree! Our toddler liked stacking the pieces on top of each other vertically too which really frustrated his sister but was fabulous fine motor work for him.

Once our Christmas tree was complete, I asked our preschooler E to check her work. She counted to determine that the longest piece had six.

We have been working on addition, fact families, and the commutative property. To review this in a hands on way I asked E to find the combination of pieces that would equal six. She matched up the pairs then wrote the corresponding addition sentences.

Finally, both kids decorated our egg carton Christmas tree with counters on each peak which was another wonderful fine motor exercise. Tomorrow I will invite them to put the puzzle together again and decorate it with other materials such as pompoms and stickers!

For More Preschool Tree Themed Activities from the PLAYful Preschool Team:

Counting and Reading Skills Trees by Capri +3

Evergreen Tree Sensory Craft by The Educators' Spin On It

Evergreen Tree Math Activity by Mom Inspired Life

Preschool Songs: Down by the Tree Farm by Growing Book by Book

Collaborative Pine Tree Process Art by Fun-A-Day

An Evergreen Nature Hunt by Rainy Day Mum

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