It all starts with the large group lesson at the beginning of my 60 minute math time. Today my students learned about tens frames. I mapped out two tens frames on butcher paper and allowed my students to work as teams to make the numbers I gave to them. Since we were using only one tens frame, I asked the children to create numbers (in no specific order) from 0 to 10. They went bonkers!! Firstly, the activity got them out of their seat and had them all participating and, secondly, they were enthralled in the spirit of games and competition! These kiddos have so much fun being kids and learning at the same time.
Then our last 30 to 40 minutes is devoted to math workstations. Currently, my students are working out of three drawers of differing subject areas all containing 3 to 5 "games" for the kids to play. Our counting drawer currently hold Skip-bo, 2 boxes of Chutes and Ladders (which involves counting forwards on a hundreds grid) and skip counting pages. My student think that they have died and gone to heaven whenever I announce that it is workstation time. "Yay, I love playing games Miss Post!" is what they always tell me and boy to I have them fooled!! My next drawer contains Tens and Ones Place Value "games" that I found on TeachersPayTeachers, My students play memory all while learning fundamental number sense skills. My final drawer is strictly devoted to comparing number (greater than, less than, equal to). The card game War is a clear favorite amongst my kiddos. Did you know that you were comparing numbers when you played that game as a kid?!?! Neither did I! They also love working with their "alligator" mouth (Popsicle sticks which are colored green topped with googlie eyes) in workstations.
"Can we play now Miss Post?" I love that they are always asking to work in math workstations even if they think that it is playing, I know that they are learning way more than they could ever imagine!
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