Stack a Cap Math Activity

Challenge kids to a stacking challenge with leftover lids. Not only will they have fun trying to win, they can work on counting, numbers, and fine motor skills in the process. Stack a cap math activity is easy to put together, and can be adapted for preschool, kindergarten, or first grade.

Summer is a great time to use things around the house to help avoid summer learning loss. This activity is simple to put together in your classroom or parents can become the teacher and do this activity at home. Educators are known for using anything that crosses their path in a cool way like bottle lids, blocks, and mini erasers. So search your house or classroom for anything that will hold your child or student’s interest and start stacking. I will show you how I changed the activity to teach different skills.

Getting Stack a Cap Math Ready:

Materials needed:

• Recycled bottle caps or lids
• Number cards

To get this activity ready I gathered fruit pouch caps, but any manipulative you have that stacks should work fine. My daughter thought it was fun to play with her lids in an unconventional way. I also used 2 sets of single digit numbers from 0-9.

Doing the Stack a Cap Math Activity:

There are several ways you can do this activity. First, I challenged my daughter to make a stacking contest to make the tallest tower possible. She was amazed at how tall she could stack all her lids. Once she was done stacking we counted to see how high her stack was.

Next, I placed the numbers out and had her make stacks of lids that matched each number. We then compared the stacks and decided which one had the most and which one had the least.

For double digit numbers I placed the numbers on the board and she counted out the lids by tens and then by units. This could also work for hundreds and thousands as long as you have enough pouch caps.

If you have two different colored lids, students could use one color for the tens spot and the second color for the units spot to make a more visual difference between the two.

When we were done with the activity I let my daughter come up with her own activity. It’s always nice to let students explore and discover with the materials on their own.

More Math Activities and Ideas

Sunflower Addition and Subtraction Printable

First to 20 and First to 50 Zoo Math Game

Ice Cream Literacy and Math Centers

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What materials do you like to reuse for math practice?