I have two more activities to share with you for your students to practice addition facts.
Last year I converted an old Twister game into a math practice game. I had a lot of boys in my class and found that a bit of movement can really help keep them out of trouble. The only thing is you need to be sure to teach clearly what the expected behavior is and is not and be absolutely consistent in dealing with behavior if it is what is not expected. I just wrote in numbers on each of the circles. One partner would spin the spinner while the second partner placed his hands and feet on corresponding circles. After two spins the partner on the mat would write down the fact and solve and the two would trade places. Play would continue in this way until the kids got tired of the game. As I'm being more intentional about math workstations for next year I wanted to make a worksheet that students could fill out as they worked at this station. To download a copy from google docs click on the pictures below.
On page 110 of Math Workstations, Debbie Diller suggests having students use basic fact cards to do strategy sorts. I created strategy sort cards for students to use for this activity. You may find the cards by clicking the picture below.
Wow have I got behind ... I started tutoring this past week. It's been really good for me to get back in a structured routine but it has left a lot less time to read, think, and create things related to Math Workstations by Debbie Diller.
I'll include thoughts and activities in this post from Chapter 5 on addition and subtraction and then post again hopefully later this week on Chapter 6 place value.
When I first started blogging I posted some ideas of activities that could be used in the addition/subtraction workstation. One of these ideas I found on teacher tipster. This activity, called Power Towers was one of my students favorites this past year.
I also turned a magnetic dart board into an addition fact practice activity. I've tried three times now to upload a picture of the dart board but each time I do a window pops up saying there's something wrong with internet explorer. Not sure what's going on but I'm not going to upload the picture again. So you'll just have to use your imagination this time. I created two choices of worksheets for students to complete while working using the dart board. At the time I did not create math talk cards but I'm adding them now so if you find a magnetic dart board and would like to use this activity you have some math talk cards to use as well.
Google docs is also being a little funny. They've changed things up and I haven't yet figured out how to embed documents into my blog. Sorry I can't show you the worksheet but if you would like a copy for math dart addition you can click here. If you would like a worksheet where students need to add their own numbers and then compare their score to their partner's score you can click here. You can get math talk cards for this activity here. I have no idea what's going on with uploading pictures. I can't upload a picture of my math talk card either. If you would like a copy of the math talk cards for your students to use with the dart addition click here.
I've got more to share but I'll share in another post as I'm having so much trouble right now.
I spent quite a bit of time in my classroom this weekend. I thought if I went in Saturday I could do all my planning then and not have to stay after church on Sunday. But instead I spent Saturday organizing, cleaning, and getting creative. It wasn't a total waste. My game closet is organized again with aspirations of once again covering the top shelves with a curtain and only providing the games, puzzles, and toys that pertain to our unit for free time Friday. That will happen next year. While cleaning out the closet I hit inspiration for math and phonics games. I created a math Chutes and Ladders game I spotted on the Finally in First blog. I created an addition game using a magnetic dart board that the kids really enjoy.
I will be creating a score sheet for the kids to use to write their addition facts they hit when playing. I'll post it when I'm done. I also began work on a sight word Candy Land that I heard reference to on another site but didn't actually see a picture of. There were two games of Twister in the closet so I took one out and added numbers to each spot. I have a little more work to do to make this game completely ready for math fact practice. But I'm pretty sure that once its finished it will be a huge hit with my first graders.
While playing in my classroom I saw a youtube video of another math game and had the materials available then so also made that.
I totally emptied out my guppy aquarium, putting the guppies in my smallest aquarium until I'm done. I started cleaning the rocks before having to leave Saturday for my church's Black History Month Celebration. So I didn't quite finish. The guppies will just have to survive for a little longer in the small aquarium before returning home.
Today we didn't have school. A crazy storm blew through last night and we were left with limited power in the building. What that meant for me though was that I had more time today to let my creative juices flow. They always seem to overflow at this time of the year so I'm happy I actually had the opportunity to let them, even though I'm fairly frustrated by the lack of time I feel I have to actually fit everything in that I still need to teach. Ugh too many snow days this year!!!
Here's my creation from today ... I drew a little picture of something similar on the white board a couple weeks ago when my Making Words lesson included words with ai. I told the kids at the time that I would make a poster to hang up that they could use for "research" I'm much happier with this than with any poster I would have come up with. Perhaps I'll post the templates and instructions later so others can make it as well.
I just need to decide what exactly I'm going to put in the speech bubble. I haven't decided if I'll put the rhyme when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking or if I'll put pictures of words that have ai in the middle.
I'll be showing this video to my students very soon as well ... I'm getting ahead of myself though. We still have two more weeks of long o and long u with bossy e before we even get to this.
Last year I converted an old Twister game into a math practice game. I had a lot of boys in my class and found that a bit of movement can really help keep them out of trouble. The only thing is you need to be sure to teach clearly what the expected behavior is and is not and be absolutely consistent in dealing with behavior if it is what is not expected. I just wrote in numbers on each of the circles. One partner would spin the spinner while the second partner placed his hands and feet on corresponding circles. After two spins the partner on the mat would write down the fact and solve and the two would trade places. Play would continue in this way until the kids got tired of the game. As I'm being more intentional about math workstations for next year I wanted to make a worksheet that students could fill out as they worked at this station. To download a copy from google docs click on the pictures below.
