April Showers Math Activities

Whew!  It's been hard to get back into the swing of things after being on Spring Break last week!  At least this is a short week since we had Monday off, too!  Tomorrow is Thursday already?! Yay!

 

Over break, I created some tens frames activities to use as math centers this week.  This is a review skill for us--we learned about tens frames way back in the fall and then again when we started exploring teen numbers.  It's a skill, though, that I don't feel our math series spends enough time with.  We did some activities with tens frames again around the holidays and I just didn't feel like it was a secure skill for many of my kiddos so I wanted to revisit it at least one more time this year.

 

For one center, they had to choose a number card and then fill in the tens frames correctly.  Before, I was getting some students just coloring in random spots in the frame and not going in order.  That defeats the purpose, don't you think??!!  This time, I modeled very carefully by projecting the recording sheet on my board and doing a few together.  Yes, I did that last time, too, but some of them must not have gotten it--imagine that!  Model, model, and model some more! This time, they did great with it!  I was very pleased!

 

 

 

Another activity had the students choosing a card with tens frames on it, finding the number on their recording sheet and coloring it to match.  When I modeled this activity, I really tried to emphasize that I didn't want them to count each dot, but use what they know about tens frames!  The next step will be working more with base ten blocks, so I want that foundation in place!

 

 

 

Every so often, we have a "math games" day, so then I plan to use the cards to play a matching game by having the kids match the tens frames to the correct number.  This group of kids LOVES to play any kind of Memory or Go Fish kind of game--that's such a bonus for me because you can make a matching game out of ANY skill!

 

Head over here to check out these activities!