Rosh Hashanah Apple Number Counting Board

I made this Rosh Hashanah Apple Number Counting Board to help my first grader with her counting, sorting, and pattern skills and have another chance to review the apple theme of Rosh Hashanah! 

This Rosh Hashanah Apple Number Counting Board was easy to set up, although it did involve a lot of gluing, and has a ton of great developmental benefits in addition to connecting the symbolism of the apples to the holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

If you don’t have any empty egg cartons, you could easily use little paper cups instead!

And, this activity would be great to do after reading one of your favorite Rosh Hashanah books! Our favorite is Apple Days, which would work great with this activity by connecting it to the apple symbol of Rosh Hashanah.

What You’ll Need

• Large empty egg carton (like from Costco) or small plastic or paper cups
• Red, green and yellow paint
• Black sharpie
• Brown construction paper
• Green construction paper
• Glue gun
• Beans (navy would be ideal, but pinto can also work!)
• Green, red, and yellow food coloring
• 3 small ziploc bags

Putting It Together

1. Paint the inside of the bottom of each egg carton or paper cup. I painted alternate egg carton bottoms red and green to help her practice counting by twos and to identify the even and odd numbers. All the multiples of five I painted yellow so she can easily identify those and practice counting by fives.

2. I dyed pinto beans red, green and yellow so that she could match the colors and count each number by color, moving the bean counters one at a time to the corresponding color and number. Navy beans would have worked better for representing the colors but hey, in a pandemic you work with what you have in your pantry! 

3. Make the egg cartons look like apples by gluing brown paper stems and green paper leaves, just like my apple stick activity from last week.

4. Add some tongs and invite your kid to start playing … I mean practicing math and Rosh Hahanah 😉

Finished & Loving It!

I set up this Rosh Hashanah Apple Number Counting Board and invited my daughter to check it out. She was so excited and started immediately grabbing the tongs and carefully picking up each bean and putting it in the right place. I can see us returning to this activity far past the end of the High Holidays to practice additional counting sequences and using it to visually display and practice addition and subtraction. 

My Little Guy isn’t quite ready to count out the beans on his own but could easily use this to practice his fine motor skills with the tongs and beans and color matching by matching the beans to the colored apple. He can count with me and practice saying the names of the colors which is a current speech development goal.

This Rosh Hashanah Apple Number Counting Board was such an easy Rosh Hashanah activity to make and it was a fun way to learn about the holiday and practice math! And the apple theme is of course perfect for back to school fun as well!!

Check out our High Holiday Activities from this year here:

High Holiday 2020 Round Up

Rosh Hashanah DIY Honeycomb and Bees Playdough Stamping

Rosh Hashanah Apple Stick Matching Activity

Tashlich Sensory Science Experiment

Jonah’s Fish Cookies

Apples and Honey Sensory Bin

Nature Birthday Crowns

Make sure to follow us on Instagram to see how we prepare and celebrate these special holidays this year.

Here are our High Holiday experiences from prior years:

High Holiday 2019 Kid-Friendly Activity List

Rosh Hashanah Symbols Felt Wall

Messy Rosh Hashanah Apples and Honey Sensory Play

Need more information about the High Holidays? Check out these fabulous resources:

Celebrating the High Holidays by PJ Library

My Jewish Learning’s High Holidays

Reform Judaism’s Rosh Hashanah page

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