Maths Champions: Festive Early Years Maths Success
This festive season, NDNA’s Maths Champions programme has been delighted to see early years settings across the UK embracing Christmas themes to enrich children’s early mathematical development. After reaching out to participating nurseries, our Early Years Advisers received a collection of wonderful examples showing how practitioners are embedding maths into meaningful, playful learning experiences.
From Christmas tree counting to subitising with Santa, these activities demonstrate the creativity, confidence and commitment of early years educators supporting high-quality EYFS maths.
Harvey House Nursery: Colour and number matching magic
Samantha Hill, Nursery Manager at Harvey House Nursery, shared a beautifully simple but deeply enriching maths activity that has captured the children’s interest this month.
“It is a number and colour matching activity whereby they match the coloured cotton bud to the hole on the correct colour on the Christmas tree. This activity enhances the children’s colour and number recognition as well as their fine motor skills and coordination skills.”
Samantha added that the team plans to continue strengthening their maths provision:
“We hope to continue to enhance the mathematical provision within the preschool room by developing their awareness of shape and size and developing their numerical language development through the introduction of patterns and numbers within the room.”
This is a wonderful example of festive, hands-on early years maths learning at its best.
Little Dreamers: Festive maths in every room
Kodie, a Practitioner at Little Dreamers, shared a range of Christmas-themed EYFS maths experiences taking place throughout the setting.
“Preschool were matching quantities to numbers on our giant, on-the-floor Christmas tree. Our babies were talking about quantity as they scooped ingredients for a Christmas pudding.
Our two-year-olds have been doing a lot of hidden numbers, having scavenger hunts for numerals and this morning they built snowmen with a focus on mathematical size language such as longest, tallest, biggest, etc.”
These activities show how early years maths can be seamlessly woven through play, exploration and festive fun.
Mickleover Methodist Preschool: Festive games that build mathematical thinking
The team at Mickleover Methodist Preschool shared a broad selection of Christmas-themed early years maths activities, each supporting key aspects of the EYFS mathematics curriculum.
“We support mathematical development with Christmas-themed games. Matching dominoes and lotto games, also using the lotto board to subitise and look at number composition. The advent calendar uses counting and number recognition.”
Their activities spanned shape, pattern, measurement and physical exploration:
“Together we look at pattern, shape and comparison, measuring size as well as distance travelled to knock down snowman skittles. The Christmas-themed train track gives opportunity to think about sequencing and maps, and the home corner parties open up so many learning opportunities to explore what is learned independently and with staff support.”
A fantastic example of how nursery maths activities can be fun, meaningful and deeply engaging.
South and City College Birmingham Nursery: Festive maths inspired by children’s interests
Marianne Washbrook, Nursery Practitioner at South and City College Birmingham Nursery, shared a fantastic range of Christmas-themed maths activities taking place across all age groups in the setting.
Some activities are familiar core maths experiences given a festive twist, while others have been designed entirely around children’s interests, ensuring learning remains meaningful, playful and engaging.
One popular activity saw a mischievous elf spark excitement and problem-solving:
“Oh no! The Pre-School Elf has been up to mischief again. He has hidden all the Christmas tree decorations around the room and is also hiding somewhere. Can you find all the decorations and sort them into the correct numbered pots?”
Children worked together to decide how many decorations were needed for each pot by recognising numerals or counting spots on cards. This playful challenge supported key early years maths skills, including sorting and organising, matching, shape recognition, comparison, cardinality and subitising.
Another festive favourite was the snowball toss activity:
“Can you build a snowman using the pentagon blocks and then knock it down by throwing snowballs at it? Let’s try to see which snowman is the tallest and which one is the smallest.”
Children explored shape, size, comparison and spatial awareness, while also predicting outcomes and using mathematical language to describe direction and movement.
Santa’s workshop also came to life through a sorting challenge:
“Santa is getting ready to load his sleigh full of presents. Can you help Santa to organise the presents by shape or colour? If you’re feeling confident, try matching the amount of shapes with the correct number.”
This activity supported matching, cardinality and shape recognition, encouraging children to extend their learning at their own pace.
Festive decorating offered further opportunities to embed maths in real-life contexts:
“It’s time to get ready for Christmas. Who can help decorate the tree and put the presents underneath? Let’s practice looking at shapes and explore different sizes and patterns in meaningful contexts.”
Children were encouraged to count presents, notice patterns and talk about position and space, a perfect example of EYFS maths learning through play.
Marianne’s examples clearly show how imaginative, child-led ideas can support strong mathematical foundations while keeping learning joyful and inclusive for all ages.
Hillside Primary Pre-school: Reflective maths in action
Sabrina, Pre-school Lead at Hillside Primary Pre-school, shared how maths has been embedded throughout December using core Maths Champions activities alongside festive learning.
“The children’s favourites have been the number hunt and delivering the post.”
Delivering the post linked maths with real-life experiences, as children wrote letters to Father Christmas and added numbers to envelopes. The team plans to extend this learning in the New Year with a walk to the local post office, spotting numbers in the environment and sharing house numbers.
Sabrina highlighted increased engagement and progress:
“The children have engaged more with maths, and we have found that their counting, subitising, and problem-solving skills are improving, especially when we use clever questioning.”
She also reflected on growing staff confidence and the value of reflective practice:
“Emma and I are feeling more confident about introducing more maths into the setting… We plan to continue with core activities and embed these using ideas from the resources section.”
A great example of reflective, purposeful early years maths through the Maths Champions programme.
Rushwick Pre-School: Extending maths through outdoor exploration
Stacey Clark and Sarah Wilson, Pre-School Managers at Rushwick Pre-School, shared how festive resources and outdoor learning have been used to keep children engaged in meaningful early years maths.
“We are using some festive resources to keep the children engaged in our maths opportunities and enjoying using some outside time to explore shape and patterns with seasonal additions.”
Looking ahead to 2026, the team is focusing on deepening learning through repetition and reflection:
“We have seen some real improvements in the children’s individual development, as well as the whole cohort… particularly those children we have focused our assessments on.”
Plans are already in place to enhance the outdoor maths environment:
“We have plans to add more natural shapes to our outdoor areas and source more loose parts, as the children are really enjoying exploring those.”
These developments are supporting pattern making, grouping, counting and number recognition outdoors, demonstrating how Maths Champions planning can extend learning beyond the classroom.
Monks Coppenhall Academy: Early number and pattern
Nicola Bailey, Early Years Lead at Monks Coppenhall Academy, shared how maths has been embedded across both early years rooms during December.
In Room 1, children focused on Move and Label 1, 2, 3, noticing small quantities during routines such as snack time and spotting numerals in the environment, stories and songs. A popular activity involved rolling a 1–3 dice and using scarves to make matching gross motor movements, supporting counting and number recognition.
In Room 2, children explored repeated patterns using visuals, real-life objects and Makaton signing. Through focused activities and independent play, children matched and created patterns using multilink cubes, pegs and boards, supported by positive praise and open-ended questioning.
A great example of inclusive, play-based early years maths through the Maths Champions programme.
Celebrating festive maths across the early years
The Maths Champions programme is thrilled to see such creative, thoughtful practice taking place across early years settings this festive season. From colour matching to subitising, number hunts to size language, each setting has demonstrated the powerful impact of high-quality early years maths provision.
A warm thank you to Harvey House Nursery, Riverside Primary School (Riverside Wirral), Deerhurst Day Nursery, Little Dreamers, Mickleover Methodist Preschool, South and City College Birmingham Nursery, Hillside Primary Pre-school, Rushwick Pre-School, and Monks Coppenhall Academy for sharing their inspiring festive maths activities and celebrating the impact of the Maths Champions programme.
We look forward to celebrating even more early years maths success stories in the New Year.
CLICK HERE: Join our Maths Champions programme for FREE
- early years
- Early years maths
- EYFS mathematics
- Maths
- Maths Champions
- NDNA
- Nursery maths activities
- Play-based learning
- Practitioner confidence
- Subitising
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