Jelly Bean Counting and Sorting Activity for Kids

If you’re looking for a fun yet simple way to practice basic math with kids, check out this Jelly Bean Counting and Sorting Activity! It is also a great way to learn about the letter ‘J.’

As a child, I loved jelly beans so much. Oddly enough, my favorite ones were the black licorice ones. This worked out well because my brother didn’t like them so when we would get a bag of mixed jelly beans, I got to trade him all the ‘icky ones’ (aka lemon, which he loved) for his black licorice ones.

Jelly beans are the perfect thing to sort and count for young kids because they are fun and come in so many colors. It’s almost unbelievable. This Jelly Bean Counting and Sorting Activity is geared towards younger kids learning about the letter J. It can also be a great activity for older kids if you geared it towards multiplication or division rather than letters and sorting.

The best part is that your child gets to gobble up all the beans at the end of this activity!

Jelly Bean Counting and Sorting Activity for Kids

Materials Needed:

paper
marker
jelly beans

Directions:

1. Use a marker to draw an upper and lowercase J onto a piece of paper. Pour all of your jelly beans onto the table and sort them by color. You can also guess which color you’ll have the most of. When you are finished sorting, you can count and record the number of each color.

My daughter decided to create a pattern on each of her j’s. This was also great practice. You can pick your pattern and cover the upper and lower case J.