20 Pop It Activities for Math, Literacy, and Fine Motor

Use pop its as an engaging tool to teach math, literacy, names, and fine motor skills with preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students. Pop its have become a craze that children love, so use that to your advantage and bring them into the classroom to engage students in academic activities. You can find a variety of sizes, colors, and shapes now to make them even more fun! I was able to find ones shaped like letters, animals, and even individual ones that act like blocks! Your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students are going to love these fun pop it activities!

Check out my Pop It Alphabet Mats and my Pop It Number Mats!

 These are all of the pop it mats and supplies I used for these pop it activities on Amazon (click on the pop it list to see everything I used). This post contains affiliate links which means I earn a tiny commission when you use my links at no cost to you.

Pop It Activities

Calm Down with Pop Its! Add pop its to your calm down area. Students can practice their breathing while they pop each bubble, or just fidget while they think through their big feelings.

Pop It Play Dough Tray! Work on fine motor skills by incorporating pop it mats into your play dough center. Students can practice rolling small balls of play dough and placing them in the pop its or cut the play dough with scissors. Add more tools and treasures like beads and cupcake molds!

Cut & Fill With Play Dough! Another option is to work on scissor skills by having the students roll long snakes of play dough. Then, use scissors to cut small chunks off and place them into the pop it mats. This is such a fun and engaging way to practice and develop scissor skills. Make it a game by seeing who can fill the pop it the fastest!

Pop It Fill! Place tweezers., pom poms, and themed pop it mat on a tray to encourage students to use their fine motor muscles to fill the fidget mats with pom poms. It’s a simple fine motor transfer activity, but it is so engaging and fun for students!

Literacy Pop It Activities

Pop It Letters! Use letter-shaped pop its to give students another exposure to the letters. The letter mats pictured below are small in size, so I had my students use beads to fill the holes. Then they said the letter and its sound. Students could practice all the letters, just the letters in their name, just the letters in a certain sight word, or many other combinations to fit your students’ needs.

Pop It Letter Mats! Use these Pop It Letter Mats to add even more alphabet practice to your sensory center. Each mat features a pop it letter example on how to make it, a picture that begins with that letter, and an area to trace the letter. You can laminate the mats or slide them into wipe and write pockets and then have students use dry-erase markers to trace the letters. QUICK TRICK: Have students use the SAME COLOR pom pom to make a letter on the pop it making it easier to see visually.

Pop It Beginning Sounds! Grab a pop it fidget mat, write letters on each bubble with a Sharpie, and get busy practicing beginning sounds! Use beginning sound magnets, and students can pop the beginning sounds. Check out these fun pop it activities for your little learners.

Pop It Names! Practice names with preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students with pop it mats and name cards! Simply write the letters in ABC order on a pop it and students pop each bubble for the letter in their name. Such simple pop it activities that could have a huge impact!

Pop It Letter Match! Grab a keyboard pop it mat, and have your students practice their letters! I had students match letter beads to each letter on the pop it mat. You could use any other small-lettered manipulative. Ways to differentiate this activity would be to have students match capital to capital, capital to lowercase, or lowercase to lowercase.

Pop It Sight Words! Use sight word cards and a pop it mat to create a fun sight word spelling game. Students pick a sight word card, identify the sight word, and then pop each letter to spell it. I found these fun ice cream cone bulletin board cards at the dollar tree, and they make the cutest sight word flash cards.

Pop It CVC Words! Your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students are going to love this engaging CVC activity. I found individual pop it blocks and CVC magnets on Amazon and turned them into a CVC activity. Students say the CVC word and pop each sound as they say it. You can have students write the sounds on a dry-erase board or place a dry-erase pocket on the tray like I did, and students can write the sounds above the pop it.

Sensory Pop It Activities

Pop It Water Fun! Have students increase their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, setting up this water pop it activity! Place some ocean pop it mats, a cup of water, and pipette droppers onto a tray. As students fill each bubble with water, they are exploring capacity and volume. Plus, students are strengthening those tiny finger muscles as they squeeze the dropper.

Pop It Dino Sensory Bin! Engage your students with a fun dinosaur-themed sensory bin. This bin uses chickpeas, small plastic dinosaurs, miniature plastic bones, small dinosaurs, scoops, pom poms, hand tweezers, and a dino pop it mat. Students can use tweezers or their fingers to pick up items and place them on the dino mat. It encourages counting and sorting! It’s a fun way to sneak in some math practice.

Pop It Strawberry Sensory Bin! Use a strawberry pop it mat, mini erasers, scoops, tweezers, and black beans to make a cute summer or healthy food-themed sensory bin! The plastic container is the bottom part of a DIY popsicle tray.

Pop It Sensory Color Sort! Dye some beans and add in matching pom poms. Then, have students sort the colors in the pop it. Throw in tweezers for added fine motor practice. Mix in some mini erasers, beads, or buttons for another sensory option to sort. I like making mini sensory bins and adding mini pop its in pencil boxes for a quiet activity for friends who are awake at the table during nap time.

Math Pop It Ideas

Pop It Color Sort! Use a rainbow pop it mat to have students practice sorting by color. Students can sort beads, pom poms, buttons, mini erasers, dyed sensory fillers, or any other small manipulatives. Throw in some tweezers for added fine motor practice.

Pop It Patterns! Little learners can practice creating patterns by using a pop it mat, pom poms, and tweezers. Other manipulatives could be used like buttons, beads, dyed chickpeas, or mini erasers. You could create the top row, and students finish the mat, or students could create their own patterns.

Pop It Count & Fill! Grab a die, beads, and a pop it mat to play this fun counting game! Students will roll the die, count the dots, and then place that many beads in the pop it mat. Students could also use pom poms, buttons, mini erasers, cotton balls, or other small manipulatives for this pop it activity.

Pop It Number Mats! Use these pop it number mats to practice counting, one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, and so much more! Each mat features a pop it mat showing students how to make the number, a ten frame showing that amount, and an area to trace that number. Slide the mats into wipe and write pockets or laminate them so students can use dry-erase markers to trace the numbers.

Pop It Addition! Next up, pop it addition! Give students two dice to roll and create an addition problem. Students will place the number of objects in the pop it to represent the numbers they rolled on their dice. Then, they can write the addition sentence they created for a fun challenge. You can use any small manipulatives that fit in the pop it mat, like buttons, beads, mini erasers, pom poms, cotton balls, or beans.

Grab some pop it mats and have fun in the classroom with these pop it activities for teaching literacy and math skills while improving their fine motor skills! Don’t forget to grab the Pop It Alphabet Mats and Pop It Number Mats to enhance your pop it learning experiences!

Check out my Amazon Store to see all the fun resources I use in my classroom! Find the Pop It List for the goodies I mentioned in this blog post.

Want some tray activities? Check out my Literacy, Math, and Fine Motor Tray Activities here!

Check out my Alphabet Letter Mats to get more letter practice!

Need ideas for a safe and calming area for your students? Check out my post about my Safe Place for Little Learners.

Want to see the pop it activities in action? Check out the video.

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