A chomping alligator who can help teach your child the less-than and greater-than symbols? What a cute way to kick off some math for the school year!

This project didn’t work out exactly as planned for us, largely because I had to upcycle egg cartons that were not my own, and as I result used half-dozen cartons, not a full dozen… Needless to say, our final product wasn’t quite a long alligator snout (perhaps more of a hungry dinosaur!) but the lesson remained the same.

Cut apart the tops and bottoms of two egg cartons; paint the tops green and the bottoms white. Let dry completely.

Here is where things got a little difficult: Punch holes in the green portions, and use yarn to thread first through the holes of the bottom “jaw” and then the holes of the top “jaw.” This is great lacing practice for kids! Tie off with a knot at the end.

I then hot glued the white “teeth” into each portion of the jaw. (You may need to trim about half a row of the teeth away, for it to nest properly inside the top portion of the carton.

You now have a hinged puppet who can open and close its mouth to chomp up… numbers!

For our counting game, I affixed block dot stickers to construction paper in various combinations – 2 dots is less than 3; 5 dots is greater than 4; and so on.

Travis had a bit of difficulty with the actual mechanism of our gator’s jaw, but aside from that, I loved watching him complete each task we put up on the easel. For each, he would count the dots first, then declare which was greater.

When your child tires of the math lesson, they’ll have a fun gator puppet to play with! Ours was soon involved in superhero games.