Dice Domes: Fact Families Practice

While shopping at Mardel the other day (seems to be an almost weekly stop), I found a great addition and subtraction resource - Dice Domes. The domes have two soft number dice along with another dice filled with plus and minus signs. The students shake the domes and then practice adding or subtracting the numbers. Because the dice are soft, they are great for math stations, which I call math tubbing. To help the students add and subtract the numbers, I gave each student a part-part-whole mat. But, not just any part-part-whole mat! We used Hefty's Zoo Pal plates which can be found at most grocery stores such as Wal-Mart. The students worked in small groups to shake the Dice Domes and model the addition or subtraction problem on their part-part-whole mat with beans. As they played, I walked around and asked them what other number sentences they could come up with based off their dice. We reviewed that in addition you have to start with the two smallest numbers, the parts, and in subtraction you start with the largest number, the whole. The students seemed to love it! On a side note, although the Dice Domes were not too expensive, my teammates and I brainstormed that we could easily make more with plastic baby food containers and dice. To make the dice with the plus and minus signs, we thought using corrective tape on regular dice to write the symbols on.