Apple bowling!  Have you done it before?  We do pumpkin bowling every year, but this was our first time bowling with apples.

We went away last weekend and when we came home 2 of our apples had started to spoil so instead of throwing them away we decided to practice “counting on” with them instead!

“Counting on” is a a pre-addition skill.  Once you can count you learn to “count on” starting at a number other than one.  Keeping score while bowling is a great authentic way to practice counting on.

How to Play Apple Bowling

• 6 plastic bottles (or even paper towel rolls)
• 2 apples
• starting line
• marker (permanent if writing directly on the “pins”)
• apple cut outs (optional)

To make our apple bowling pins we taped apple cut outs to plastic bottles and filled them with a little bit of water.  At first we filled them all the way up but it was too difficult for my 3 year old so we ended up dumping most of the water out.  You could use them empty, but they were so light it was an automatic strike when either of the big kids hit any of the pins.

I had my oldest number the pins for extra number recognition practice, but the numbers didn’t matter for scoring.  They each rolled an apple and counted how many pins were down before rolling the second one.  We would then practice “counting on” from the first number.  Since we only had 6 pins we also practiced counting on while totaling our scores each round.

Apple bowling was a lot of fun and great math counting game for kids!  The kids played over and over again until the apples were too soft to roll anymore.

This is another post in the Move and Learn series where we show you activities you can do with your kids that are active, fun and educational!

See what the other Move and Learn bloggers have been up to and visit our Move and Learn Pinterest board for even more ideas!

• Beginning Letter Sounds Sort Game from hands on : as we grow
• Fall Leaf Number Movement Game from Toddler Approved
• Counting Game from The Pleasantest Thing
• Our Move & Learn Pinterest Board!

And if you are just joining in now make sure to check out ABC Ice Cream Gross Motor Game, Sight Word Swim, and Sight Word Cup Crash!