Online Flashcards and Timer

Fact Monster has decent online addition flashcards that the students can practice at home. You can find the flashcards here. In class when we take the math facts checks we use this online countdown clock so the students can monitor their own progress. Another great site to practice addition flashcards is Mr. Martini's classroom site. These flashcards are much larger and the students can click on the sum at the bottom of the card rather than typing in the answer.

Math Facts Checks

This nine weeks we wil begin our emphasis on learning math facts. Each week your child will create addition flashcards in class which will be sent home to study. each Friday the students will be given fifty addition problems which they must complete within five minutes. This averages out to be about six seconds per problem. Eventually the students need tobe able to identify the math facts within three second. But, we will build up to this goal gradually. Studnets who do not earn at least 70% on their math facts check will have the opportunity to be rechecked for a sticker on their goal sheet but the original grade will remain. We will work on the addition facts in this order:

Week 1: +1
Week 2: +2
Week 3: +3
Week 4: +4
Week 5: +5
Week 6: +6
Week 7: +7
Week 8: +8
Week 9: +9

Don't Let the Cows Out!

A few years ago in an effort to find an engaging way for the students to practice math facts, I created a game called "Don't Let the Cows Out!" In this game, the students sit in a circle on the floor and take turns throwing two large foam dice into the center - we call the dice "cows." The first student to add the two numbers together stays in the middle and competes against the next player. The students are the fence and we have a rule that if the "cows" get out of the fence, you lose your turn and have to go clean up after the cows...you know, "cow patties." Yes, I realize this is strange but the kids love it!  And, it discourages the students from throwing the dice all over the room. I have no idea why this idea came to me but it surprisingly works and the kids love it! Now that the students are well-versed in the rules and expectations of this game, I can assign a "trail boss" to monitor the game while I provide other students with small group instruction in math. The students who are not in the middle provide encouragement with cheers and by pretending to make food for players who have been in the circle for a while. It keeps the students active while waiting their turn. We try to play this game at least fifteen minutes per math period to spiral in math facts but they would play all day if I would let them. They love it so much they ask to play it when we have indoor recess.

Dice Addition

I recently saw an idea online about keeping dice in plastic baby food containers for the students to use as addition practice. While in my hometown for the Christmas break, I came across small colorful containers at a dollar store. They were perfect for the dice. Each student has their own container with two dice in it. They shake the dice and practice adding the two numbers together. The students keep the dice containers in a basket on their table where they also keep phonics books and practice clocks. The materials in these desk baskets are used for when the students finish work early.

Christmas Light Addition

To help the students practice addition and to have a little painting fun, the students used Do-A-Dot Paints to create Christmas lights in two colors. They then counted how many of each color they used to create their lights and wrote corresponding number sentences with labels. We have been working on using labels when answer addition and subtraction word problems.

Christmas Tree Addition

In the computer lab yesterday the students drew their own trees in the program Pixie 2. They practiced the skill of "click, hold, and drag" to create three overlapping triangles. They then learned to fill in the shapes with the paint bucket feature. For each new section in their tree they had to choose a new shade of green and a new texture background. After their tree was created, they again practiced "click, hold, and drag" to make circle ornaments and filled them with either blue or red. They then typed an addition word problem from the board with their specific number of ornaments. They then solved their addition problems. Lastly, they practiced using the search feature in the clipart, or stickers, section of Pixie 2 to find a star to place on top of their tree. I love the different shapes and sizes of their trees!

Fact Family Wreaths

To help the students understand related addition and subtraction problems, or fact families, they created Fact Family Wreaths with paper pattern blocks. The students chose between two different wreath patterns. These wreath patterns can be downloaded here from PreKinder and the pattern block templates can be downloaded here. After creating their wreath, they cut them out and glued them on the recording sheet. Teachers, you can download the recording sheet here for FREE. The students had to count how many green and red pattern blocks were needed to make their wreaths and then write the related math facts. We discussed how the wreaths with mostly green had to use more pattern blocks because they cover less area. Teachers, this is a great way to frontload the concept of measuring area. We also discussed that it takes three of the pattern blocks to make one red pattern block. Again, this is a good way to frontload a math concept - this time fractions.

Holly Berry Number Lines and Number Patterns

As a review of number patterns, the students created their own number lines on sentence strips using Holly Berries and Holly Leaves. The berries represented the numbers and the leaves represented the space in between the numbers. After the students glued down the berries and leaves, I worked with the students in small groups to identify number pattern rules. Each group was given a different number pattern to complete. For example, one group was given the number pattern 9, 12, 15, 18. So, the students numbered the berries from 9 to 18 in order. They then drew "jumping hills" from 9 to 12 on the top of their number line. They then drew "jumping hills" from 12 to 15 but this time on the bottom of their number line. They then alternated back to the top for 15 to 18. The reason I had them alternate the "jumping hills" from top to bottom was so that they could visually see how many "jumping hills" were between each step in their number pattern. After identifying the pattern, the students wrote the rule, such as "Rule +3" for this example, on their number line. The "jumping hills" are a little hard to see in the pictures because they drew them with red colored pencils in case they needed to erase.

Jumping Hills - Number Patterns

While learning about number patterns, the students learned the strategy of using "jumping hills" on a number line to count the number of spaces between numbers. To help them practice, students used dry erase mats and number lines to draw their "jumping hills." For example, if the number pattern was 1, 5, 9 then the students would draw a hill from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and then 4 to 5. They would see that there were four "hills" or four spaces. They would then repeat this going from the number 5 to the number 9. They would then see that it was again, four spaces. From this they could conclude that the skip counting rule was +4. The "jumping hills" really give the students a good visual of skip counting number patterns.

Shake Those Beans

To help the students understand the concept of addition and subtraction, we have been playing a game called "Shake Those Beans." Each day we practice finding addition sentences for a set sum. The students get a cup of two-color beans that equal that set sum. They then shake the beans and count how many of each color and add them together. Fellow teachers, you could use two-color counters for this as well if you do not want to spray paint beans. They mark their answer on a graph. After each student has rolled their dice a total of ten times, we tally on the board which addition sentence they rolled the most. This is a great probability connection because most of the time, the addition sentences in the middle, such as the doubles, are rolled the most. The students find this fascinating! We follow up this lesson by building the various addition sentences with two different color sets of Unifix cubes. We then practice flipping over the stick to show how addends in a fact family just "flip flop" but the sum stays the same. We then find the related fact family subtraction sentences by taking away parts.

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.

Fact Family Practice Online

EZSchool has a free fact family game online that students use to build four related addition and subtraction problems. The game gives the players three numbers and the students click on them to put them in the correct order in a number sentence. Parents, you can help your children while they play by remind them that in addition you start with the two smallest numbers and in subtraction you start with the largest number. Then remind the students that in fact families, the two smallest numbers switch places. Or, as we call it in our class, the two smallest numbers "flip flop."

Dominoes Doubles Snack Style Recording Sheet

Thank you to Carrie at A First Grade Teachers Passions and Obsessions for creating a recording sheet to go along with our Dominoes Doubles Snack lesson. If you haven't had a chance to check out her blog, go do so! It is great! You can view a slideshow of my students creating their Dominoes Doubles here.

Doubles Dominoes - Snack Style

My teammate, Mrs. Timms, had an excellent idea of how to get the students to visualize addition doubles. We use dominoes as manipulatives to teach doubles so she extended this by suggesting we create edible dominoes with graham crackers, white icing, and chocolate chips. We started by adding one chocolate chip on each side to model 1+1= 2. We then added another chocolate chip to each side to model 2+2=4. We continued until we had modeled 9+9=18. Of course, after modeling the doubles, the students ate them! Below are two close-ups of the edible dominoes along with a slideshow of the students making them.

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Doubles Tree Map

To help the students remember addition and subtraction doubles, we built a class Tree Map to sort and identify the facts. We included pictures of real-life double examples to help them visualize doubles. The pictures included things such as eyes (1+1=2), insect legs (3+3=6), and semi-truck wheels (9+9=18).