Quick & Easy Classroom Games for 100th Day and Valentines Day

Edit & repost from 1/11/13

Hi, Teaching Friends!

When I design games for your classroom, one of the objectives I try to keep in mind is convenience for you. Basically, I try not to have the requirements be anything more than print, laminate, and (sometimes!) cut! After all, the idea is to make your job easier, right?

Well, if you agree, I think you'll really like the simplicity of these two February resources!

First, there's an "I Have... Who Has...?" game for the 100th Day of School. (Does that get capitalized? I mean, it is a national holiday, isn't it?)  Simple to make: Print, cut the cards apart, and laminate if you choose. 

This version of "I Have... Who Has...?" goes beyond most simple versions of this game format. Your little learners will use a number grid to interpret 29 different numerical expressions for numbers as they relate to 100.  In other words, a card might read, "Who has 11 more than 100?" or "Who has 100-4?".  You might even differentiate by letting your mathematicians choose whether or not they need the support of the number grid or want to give it a go with mental math.

Click here to see this game!

The second item is a set of print-and-play math games for Valentines Day. Five games. Print and laminate. Okay, two of them need to have paperclips put on to make the spinners. But, honest, that's it. As easy as it gets.

Click here for a closer look at these froggy Valentines day games!

Ready for more February fun & freebies?  Check this post!

Happy Teaching!

No Snow? No Problem! Snowy Classroom Activities

Just ask any kid - snow is the BEST! But depending on where you live, you may have students who never have ... and maybe never will ... experience all the fun that comes with a snowy day!

Well, you have the power to change that! Even if you can't take a class trip to the snowy mountains of Switzerland, here are some ideas for bringing snowy learning fun into your classroom... even if you teach in the tropics!

First up is the classic snowball fight game. 

This game has so many elements that kiddos love ...

*   Sitting on top of their desks

*   Ripping paper 

*   Crumpling paper

*   Throwing paper (or anything!)

You can find lots of variations on this by checking Google or YouTube, but here's the one that worked well with my first graders.

Have your students sit in two rows facing each other, or sit in a circle, either on the floor or sitting on top of their desks. Give each child a recording page (blank paper folded into 8 boxes works just fine) and a smaller paper (about 1/2 of a page is a good size - big enough for them to write on and still be able to have fun crumpling into a snowball).

Decide on your topic. We used this most often to build math fact fluency, so the topic might be sums of ten, subtraction within 20, doubles facts, etc.

How to play: Have your students write the equation (without the answer) on their small "snow paper" and crumple it to make a "snowball". Wait for the countdown... "3,2,1 - snowball fight!"  After all the snowballs have been thrown out into the middle of the group, send them out to each get one snowball (using teacherly tricks to maintain order as needed 😅). They write the equation on their recording page, solve it, crumple again, and get ready for round two!

TEACHING TIP: We all have students who have trouble getting started. Support them by generating a few examples together and displaying them on your whiteboard or interactive board. Encourage them to come up with their own equations, but leave the support visible for any students that might need it!

Next idea! Have you taken your class on a virtual field trip? 

What a great way to get some unique snow experiences! Try one of these snowy expeditions!

From Sesame Street kids, here's some up close and personal sledding fun! This would be a great opportunity for a mini-lesson about verbs.

Not exactly a field trip, but here's a walk in a snowy Canadian forest. Personally, I'd rather pick this lovely YouTube video than the classic fireplace one to use during a quiet reading or writing session.  

Here's the third idea to bring snowy fun into your teaching!

Books! Readalouds are an awesome way to get immersed in a snowy landscape! Books by Jan Brett are my personal favorite for this. I love the way her illustrations in books like The Mitten and The Hat draw you right into the snowy drifts.

Looking for non-fiction? My hands-down favorite is Snowflake Bentley, a Caldecott Award winner by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. It's the life story of the man who first photographed snowflakes. Some of William Bentley's actual photos are even included! My first graders absolutely loved this book. It's a great segue into teaching about perseverance and determination.

Search Amazon here for pages and pages of books about snow!

Do you need a book for shared reading? Here's a free book for K-1. Patterned text, strong picture/text match, and lots of high frequency words make Hey, Mr. Snowman a fun choice!

ESL / ELL teachers are finding this free book to be a good vocabulary builder for their students.

After you enjoy Hey, Mr. Snowman! together, you might enjoy using the activities in this set.

Lots of activities to extend the snowy learning fun!

The last suggestion for incorporating snow into your curriculum won't take even one extra minute from your busy day!

You're probably already using math games in your math centers and math tubs, so why not use games with snowy themes?

This game need absolutely NO PREP! The snowflake is from Dollar Tree, but you can just enlarge and print a copy. Then just add dominos. Click here to read about FIVE different ways to use this game, and to link to my friend Anne's blog where she's kindly provided more extensions with ten frames and higher numbers.

I have many (many, many 😊) winter activities in my TPT store - see them all here.

Here are three of my favorites!

 

Keep that snowflake fun going in your classroom, and you'll keep your students happily learning this winter!

Happy Teaching!

Start Summer with These Free Shark Math Games

Originally posted on Teaching Blog Roundup

Ah, summer! Here it comes! We may be lucky enough to be relaxing on the beach, gathering pretty shells, eating sandwiches with real sand in them. But our kiddos?  Always in search of adventure, they're thinking about SHARKS!  So it's definitely time to take advantage of that with these free shark math games!

It's hard to ignore the fascination kids have with sharks These free shark math games for kindergarten through third grade are a great way to put that enthusiasm to good use!

Here's a sample of the games directions that you'll find in this download!

The difficulty of these games ranges from "Fin It to Win It!" (arranging cards in numerical order) to "A Shark's Place" (two-digit place value) and on up to "Everybody Out of the Water!" (shown above), which has some trickier two-step directions, strategizing, and mental math.

Just a warning...  I had some pun-ny fun coming up with names for these games! The download also includes

* Shark Sighting

* One, Two, Three, Flip!

* Treasures of the Sea

* Sharks Alive, It's All About Five!

* Belly Up

Can't say I didn't warn you! :)

Your download includes number cards for 0-9 in both color and blackline (some of your students will love to color their own cards!) as well as the directions for eight math games.

These games would be a good match for your beach theme or ocean unit. Fun learning and easy prep for the last days of school, too! Use the same cards and try a new game every day!

Click here to download your free shark number cards and directions for math games!

If you're looking for more ocean-themed activities, this bundle might be just what you need! Click now to see it!

Happy Teaching!

Making the Old New Again ... With a Winter Math Freebie!

Hi, Teaching Friend!

Everything old is new again, or so I've heard.

I've been spending a lot of time revising some of my older resources lately ... content, covers, descriptions, the whole deal, making the old new.  We all need a bit of a makeover, or at least an update, once in a while right? And some of these old gals haven't had one since (gulp) 2012!  Whoa! Where DOES time go?

I especially want to share the resource that I finished up today. If you had the original version of this winter math freebie, I think you definitely deserve the shiny new update!

Your preschool and kindergarten students will have fun matching, sorting, and sequencing these 40 cards. Each card has a representation of a number from one through ten. And, of course, every card has

those cute snowball monsters.

Click here to download your free copy!

This set is also included in this bundle of winter math resources for PreK and K.  

 

Lots of hands-on learning... graphing, teen number clip cards, composing ten, names for numbers, subitizing, comparing numbers, and more.  

These are ideal activities for...

* Math centers

* Small groups

* Math intervention / RtI

* Modeling and teaching on your interactive board

But my favorite way to use these?  Morning tubs! Do you use morning tubs?  Social distancing?, Rethink these as take-it-to-your-desk centers. If you laminate the cards and boards and spray or wipe  them after use (assuming that's acceptable in your school, as it is in many), you'll get loads of use from these when you put them in rotation this winter!

Click here to see it now!

Thanks for stopping by... and enjoy your math freebie!

Pi Day Fun in the Primary Grades

Don't you just love a good math holiday, an event that reminds our students that math can be fun? Now that we've passed the 100th Day of School, the ultimate math teaching holiday, here comes Pi Day. For the primary grades, you ask? Well, the answer is yes! Here are some ideas for having Pi Day fun in the primary grades, too!

Of course, the math behind pi is tough stuff for our littles. but the idea of a number that goes on infinitely without repeating - well, we all know how they LOVE the idea of infinity and totally feel like big shots when they use the word! Plus, here's another fact I recently learned that you'll want to share with your little math aficionados: Pi contains every single possible combination of numbers - not just non-repeating, but totally random!

Here are a few quick ideas to help you introduce Pi Day to your students.

• Get that "WOW" response from your primary students by showing them this display of the first 10,000 digits of pi on your interactive board, courtesy of UC Berkeley.
• What is pi? Well, it isn't pie (although there's no doubt that plenty of pies will be floating around schools on March 14th!)  Here's a Greek alphabet to show your students.  See if they can find some similarities to the English alphabet.
• And then there's that decimal point. After you introduce the term, show your students how to read pi as "3-point-1-4-15-9-2-6", etc. It's also a great moment for making a connection with reading amounts of money, where the decimal point of course is read as "and". 

Because they're so hard to find, I've put together a set of Pi Day activities for the primary grades! 

These activities are different from most that you'll see. First of all, these are all math activities that practice math skills, like addition, subtraction, and using the 120 chart.  They are not craftivities or coloring pages. There's a color-by-number pi sign page (lower left above), but then it turns into a (drum roll....) math game!

Let's take a closer look!

Here's the color-by-number activity.

If you have lots of time or plan to do several days of pi activities, have your students color the page using the code one day and use the completed pages to play the game the next day. But if you're short on time, just print copies of the answer key and use those as your game boards, along with the set of directions that's included.

You'll also find two 120 chart games in this set, "Happy Pi Day" and "PI, Not Pie!", both for practice with skills like add/subtract one and add/subtract ten. Games with hundred charts and 120 charts are good practice for our firsties.  These are games that you'll use long beyond Pi Day!

What else is in this Pi Day set? Two easy prep addition and subtraction games  - just print and add dice!

Click here or on any of the pictures above to see this set of six activities at my store.

Edit:  Here are some more Pi Day activities that use the 120 chart.  In the first game, your students will add and subtract ten from numbers 1-120, and then write the answer in the correct blank space on the chart.  Bringing up the level in the second game, students will add and subtract multiples of ten.

Click here or on the picture to see this set in my TpT store!

Happy Teaching!

Fourth Grade Measurement Game Freebie!

Hi, Teaching Friends!

Fourth grade teachers, this one's for you! If you're always hunting for math games to give your students lots of effective practice that makes the most of their time in math rotations, you're going to love this measurement game freebie! (Slide down to the purple button to download it now!)

Why should I consider using these games for math rotations?

In addition to the math practice that games provide, there are so many good reasons to include games like these in your math plans! 

• Games are engaging - students want to play them again and again, and of course that equals more practice! 
• Winning a Thumbs Up game is based as much on luck as ability, so you can have partners of mixed ability work together.  I like that - it elevates the strugglers and reminds your higher students that everyone can (and should!) have opportunities to win! 
• Need more reasons? This post talks about the advantages of starting off the school year using games, and gives even more reasons in support of making games part of your math teaching plans!

What are Thumbs Up math games? 

They're easy-prep games that are played by partners, and they're all about evaluating, comparing, and sorting numerical expressions.  Every game has 24 cards, each with a mathematical expression that your students will evaluate to decide if it's thumbs up true or thumbs down false.

How do I prepare these games?

Super easy prep! Just print two sheets, the cards and the answer key. Cut the cards apart, and you're ready to go! Your download also includes two cute sorting pages which your students will enjoy using, but the sorting can be done without them if you're in a time pinch getting your game ready.

What topics do these games address?

There are ten games in the complete Fourth Grade Thumbs Up set. Here are the topics they address: 

• Factors of numbers through 100 
• Comparing two fractions with different numerators and different denominators
• Comparing decimals
• Ordering decimals
• Adding and subtracting whole number through 1,000,000
• Multiplying a whole number of up to four digits by a one-digit number
• Multiplying two two-digit numbers
• Using place value to solve multi-digit multiplication and division
• Express measurements in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. This one is your freebie!
• Characteristics of 2D and 3D shapes

Several of the games address multiple skills, like this one for geometric shapes that also brings in some addition and multiplication. Here's what I mean!

Click here to see the complete set!

Try out a Thumbs Up game with this freebie.  I'd love it if you'd let me know what you think of it!

Happy Teaching!

Crazy Math Tools, Pt. 2: Plastic Jars

Here we are, back again with some ideas for using another crazy math tool that you probably already have but might not be sure how to use. This time, the tool is small plastic jars with screw tops.

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If you're already the Queen (or King!) of Containers, you probably already have some small containers just sitting in your closet begging to be used.  If not, you can find this package of nine at your dollar store. They're just right size for the activities that I'm going to share!

I think the very best thing about these jars is their versatility! You can use so many things to fill them, and use them in so many ways.

  

For our youngest learners, these could be Counting Jars. Unscrew the top (small motor skill!!), spill the contents, and count. This works great as an independent activity. Alternatively, it makes a fun partner activity. Each partner takes a jar, spills, and counts. The partners decide who has more (or less), and then line them up matching them side by side to compare the amounts and prove the answer.

Anybody out there have a few (or a few hundred) mini-erasers? I thought so. They're the perfect size to fit in these jars for math activities! Here, you see them used as a way to get some hands-on practice with fact families.  Just fill each jar with erasers in two different colors. Have your students spill the erasers and create addition and subtraction equations that use all of the erasers in the jar.

This would be so easy to switch out for different seasons and holidays just by using different items for counting. And as I'm sure you know, that alone would make this a brand new center in the eyes of our young students!

Take it up a notch to add counting coins to your possibilities for using jars. Use whatever combination your class is working on now ... pennies and nickels, pennies and dimes, all three, or quarters, too! As with the counting activity described above, you can make this one a partner activity, too, with students comparing their totals.

Just to make your life a bit easier, here's a link to the two printables shown in the photos, free of course!

What else could you put into the jars? Here are just a few ideas.

*  Beads (avoid the round ones ... rolling off the desk, crunching underfoot, ...)

*  Dried beans

*  Pennies

*  Laminating scraps (or just laminate a few brightly colored pages, cut into strips, and snip off the   squares)

*  Treasures from the clearance section of the scrapbooking department in craft stores  (like the stars   in the photo at the top of this post)

*  Pebbles (ask your students to supply you with these!)

*  Colorful paper clips

* More traditional math manipulatives, like two-sided counters.

If your stock of math manipulatives is low or you're just looking for something to switch things up a bit, here's a collection of math tools that might help!

Happy Teaching!

Crazy Math Tools and Great Ideas for Finally Using Them

We've all been there. You bravely push your cart into Target. You vow that you won't even glance at the Dollar Spot. Suddenly the hidden electromagnet in the cart activates and you're sucked into the world of really cool stuff that you probably don't need. "I can always use this as a math manipulative," you think. After all, everybody needs math tools for effective hands-on learning, right?

And then you take that new math tool home or to school. It's still living quietly in a drawer, smiling mockingly at you whenever the drawer slides open, hanging out with its friends from Dollar Tree.

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This blog series will give you ideas for using those potential math tools in your neglected stash, along with some other inexpensive items that you may never have thought about using for math teaching and learning!


Let's kick off this series by talking about Hashtag Building Blocks from Target.  At 72 for a dollar, these could go really far at small cost. Read on for a few ideas, broken down by grade levels. Take a glance even at the ones you don't teach - you never know what might spark an idea that's perfect for your students!

PreK/Kindergarten

*   Counting: Put a bunch of hashtags in a big bowl. Partner up your students and have them take turns reaching in and pulling out a handful of hashtags. PreKs can put them in a line so the partners can count them together. For your kindergartens, use them with ten frames. Show them how to count on from ten for teen numbers.

*   Comparing Numbers:  Set up the same as for counting. This time, both students pull out a handful of hashtags on each turn. Estimate who has more. Then line them up next to each other to prove the estimate.

* Do you use sensory bins? Mix some hashtags and magnetic numerals in a bin with confetti/beans/colorful rice/whatever you use for filler. Have your students use tweezers (build those small muscles!) to pull out a numeral and then hunt for and pull the appropriate number of hashtags to match it.

First Grade  

*  Addition and Subtraction Fact Families: Have your students reach into that bowl again and pull out ten tags, using only two colors. For instance, they could pull out 4 orange and 6 green, or 8 red and 2 yellow. {Sanity Saving Hint: You may find it easier to just put two colors in the bowl and have them choose any ten. Just sayin'.} Then they'll write the addition and subtraction equations for ten that use those numbers. If they work as partners, they can check each others' work! Differentiate by using higher or lower numbers.

*  Measurement: Hashtags are great to use for non-standard measurement.  Let your students loose in your classroom with rulers they've created!

Second Grade

* Odd and Even: Back to grabbing handfuls of hashtags again! Have your students fold a paper in half and write odd on one column and even on the other. Each time they grab a handful of hashtags, they'll line them up like this and then write the number in the correct column. 

Partners/not partners is a great way to make a visual representation of odd and even numbers!

* Arrays: Get ready to multiply by building arrays.  Any manipulative would do the job, but you've got hashtags, so why not use them?

Third Grade

* Perimeter:  Your students can use hashtags to build 2D shapes. Set them up around the classroom and do a gallery walk. Your students will love moving around to see the shapes and calculate their perimeters.

As you see, there are SO many ways to use hashtags! Could you use other math tools for these activities? Well, sure, but you've got these cute little hashtags, so let's USE them!

Stay tuned {aka follow ;)} to see the next posts on offbeat math tools! In the meantime, here's another tool that I'll bet you already have, or your students probably have a few million of and would probably contribute! No, it's not Legos, but good try! These would probably hurt like heck when you step on them in the night, too. Visit the post here!


Crazy tools are great fun, but sometimes you might need something more. I've put together some info about a few more traditional math manipulatives. As is my "tradition", I've tucked two free games into it for you! Click here or on the picture below to learn more about these math tools!

How are you using hashtag building blocks in your classroom? Please share!

Happy Teaching!

Pirate Day Number Activities

With Talk Like a Pirate Day right around the corner (September 19th this year), let's talk about some fun and easy ways to bring number activities into the mix, starting with number sorts.

Sometimes the simplest of activities can bring great results. Number sorts are a simple and effective teaching technique to help your students develop number sense. 

Here's a set of 36 cards, printed nine to a page, perfect for a pocket chart sorting activity. Two sets of headers are also included: odd/even and more than 50/less than 50.

The cards are also good to use to build a looong train of numbers on your classroom floor. So much fun for your kiddos! Have them count up to or (definitely trickier!) back down from 100. There's more than the usual challenge in doing this with this particular set, because not all numbers are included.

I love to get LOTS of use from whatever I print! You, too? Read on!

Use your pirate cards to play "What's My Number?".  Use sentence strips to put together some quick headbands and clip a card to each one, or use a mini binder clip to attach the card to the back of your students' shirts. Pair up your students and model how to give clues for the number, aiming at whatever you're currently teaching.

→ Comparing numbers? "It's between 54 and 59."
→ Addition? "The number is two more than 56."
→ Subtraction? "It's three less than 71."
→ Place value? "5 tens, 8 ones."
→ Adding tens? "30 more than 28".
There's as much learning in creating the clues as there is in figuring out the answer!

Download your set of pirate number cards here!

Another Pirate Math Freebie! 

Do you read Edward and the Pirates to your students on Talk Like a Pirate day? Click here to download this set of word problems! 

If you're interested in even more Pirate Math, here's a bundled {read: save $$$} set of 19 games at my TpT store!

Happy Teaching!