These free printable St. Patrick’s Day counting clip cards are a fun, low-prep way to help your child improve their counting abilities, number recognition, finger strength, and fine motor skills.
The cards feature bright, child-friendly St. Patrick’s Day images that coordinate with the clip art in these free printable St. Patrick’s Day matching cards and printable St. Patrick’s Day bingo boards. Your little learner will also love these St. Pat’s do a dot marker pages, so make sure to grab them for free, too.
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How to print and and use counting clip cards
Counting clip cards, also called count and clip cards, are a fun and engaging way to practice counting and number recognition.
Counting clip cards help your child develop and improve:
- Number sense
- Counting abilities
- Number recognition
- Subitizing skills
- Fine motor skills
Subitizing is the ability to immediately recognize small quantities without consciously counting them. For example, you automatically know when you see three dots on a die that it means “3” without counting them “1, 2, 3” the way a young child needs to. This is subitizing.
Fine motor skills are improved when your child uses a close pin to “clip” their answer. This can be very challenging for little fingers!
If you don’t have a clothespin, that’s fine. Your child can mark the answers with a manipulative, like a counting bear, pompom, or nature treasure. For a greater fine motor challenge, have them use large tongs or tweezers to place the manipulative. In the image below, you can see my daughter using a graphing page with tweezers and wool balls:
This set of counting bears comes with tongs, cups, and activity cards. It also comes with a reusable storage box! It’s the set we personally use and a great way to get started with math manipulatives if you don’t have any yet:
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- 【Toddler Educational Toy】: Great teaching toy for basic mathematics concepts. Matching and sorting colorful cups and rainbow counting bears help...
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Materials needed for counting clip cards
You don’t need much time or materials to print and use this low-prep activity.
- Your free printable. The download is located further down the post.
- Paper or cardstock. If you’re not laminating, use cardstock. If you are laminating, I recommend 32 lb “premium” paper. It has a surprisingly non-premium price, is thicker than regular printer paper, and is bright white for vibrant images.
- Laminator and laminating pouches. These are optional, but highly recommended. Printables typically only last for a couple of uses with young children if they’re not laminated. Laminating at home quickly saves you money compared to printables to an office supply store for lamination.
- Scissors or a paper trimmer/cutter. I use this paper trimmer.
- A clothespin or manipulative to mark answers. If your pages are laminated, your child can use a dry erase marker or (even better) a dry erase crayon.
We recently discovered Stabilo Woody crayons/pencils and they’re amazing. I wish I’d known about them when I was still in the classroom. They’re basically a wax crayon inside a large wood pencil body that’s easy for children to grasp. They’re water soluble and can be used as watercolor pencils or in lieu of a dry erase marker.
Stabilo Woody crayons wipe off easily with a very slightly damp cloth. Unlike dry erase markers, Woodies have no stink and no ink to stain clothes, hands, or furniture. They are a great tool for your homeschool preschool supply box that you can use again and again without worrying about caps being left off and markers drying out.
Even if you have a clothespin and don’t need them for this particular activity, check out the Stabilo Woody line.
- Washable
- XXL lead applies as much pigment as 8 colored pencils at once
- Large width ideal for smaller hands
How to use counting clip cards
Your little one will be enjoying these printable St. Patrick’s Day counting clip cards in just a few minutes!
First, download your printable and print the pages you want. The cards have numbers 1-12 with 4 numbers per page.
Laminate the pages before cutting them out, unless your laminator instructs otherwise. This saves you a lot of extra cutting.
Cut the cards out.
Count, clip, and enjoy! My daughter is still working on left to right order, so I reinforce it by counting from left to right, top to bottom because this is reading order in English in Spanish. I demonstrate by counting aloud while pointing at each item with my index finger. She usually gets excited and joins in the counting. Then I ask her “Do you see the number __?” and she clips her guess. I frequently hold the card for her because, as a young three year old, she sometimes needs both hands to open her clothespin. (Or her 3D printed piranha clip shown below because it’s her current favorite.)
If you don’t have a clothespin, your child can place a manipulative on top of their answer or mark it with a dry erase crayon/marker. They’re a fantastic art supply that will quickly become a go-to favorite!
You can make the cards self-checking for your child by marking a mark with a Sharpie on the back of each card that corresponds to the position of the correct number.
Free printable St. Patrick’s count and clip cards download
Alright, let’s get to the free printables!
Like all free preschool printables on The Artisan Life, this game is free for personal and classroom use. You are also welcome to use it with scout troops, homeschool co-ops, etc. Basically, as long as you are personally organizing the activity, it’s fine to use these.
You are not licensed to redistribute the printouts or digital files to others. Just send your friends or coworkers to this post so they can download their own copies!
If you agree to this license, click below:
I hope your little learner has lots of fun with these St. Patrick’s themed counting clip cards!
Be sure to grab these additional free printables for St Patrick’s Day while you’re here:
Free Printables for St. Patrick's Day
These printables for St. Patrick's Day are all available for personal and classroom use.
There are activities for "big kids," like word scrambles and searches, family activities like picture bingo, and games for toddlers and preschoolers like St. Patrick's Day matching cards and do a dot printables.
I hope you enjoy!
Free Printable St Patrick's Day Bingo
This St. Patrick's Day picture bingo is, hands down, the most popular St. Patrick's Day activity on the blog! Picture bingo provides low-prep fun for the entire family. There's also a large classroom set of bingo cards so your whole class can play!
Free Printable St. Patrick's Day Roll and Cover for Preschoolers
These free printable St. Patrick's Day roll and cover mats are preschooler-approved and come with free printable dice templates.
Free Printable St. Patrick's Day Complete the Pattern
These complete the pattern printables are a fantastic preschool math activity. Turn them into a file folder game or use them as a cut and paste activity!
Free Printable St. Patrick's Day Do a Dot Marker Pages
Do a dot marker pages are no-prep and always popular with toddlers and preschoolers. Make them no-mess by using round coding label stickers instead of markers!
Free Printable St. Patrick's Day Count and Punch Cards
Count and punch cards are a fun way to practice counting and improve fine motor skills. They also make a great go-bag or quiet time activity.
10 Free St. Patrick's Day Maze Printables
There are easy, medium, and hard mazes for St. Patrick's Day in this collection of maze printables! Answer keys are included.
15+ Free Printable Four Leaf Clover & Shamrock Templates
These lucky four leaf clover templates come in all shapes and size! Grab four leaf clover outlines and patterns for St. Patrick's Day crafts here.
St. Patrick's Day Word Scramble
This free printable St. Patrick's Day word scramble comes with a colorful background or in ink-saving black and white. The answer key is included!
St Patrick's Day Word Search
Word searches are an easy, no-prep activity for kids (and they're educational!) Pick from a colorful shamrock background or ink-saving black and white. Answer key is included.
St. Patrick's Day Matching Game
This printable St. Patrick's Day memory game is fun for kids of all ages! Play them as a matching game for toddlers or face down as a memory game for older kids.
Lucky Printable Banner
Practice gratitude ith this free printable "Lucky" banner to help you count your blessings.
Free Printable Shamrock Templates (includes green shamrocks!)
Looking for classic Irish shamrocks? These pritnable shamrock templates are for you! Includes green shamrock printables.
7 Free Printable Pot of Gold Templates
These free printable pot of gold templates are perfect for St. Patrick's Day crafts and St. Patrick's Day writing activities.
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