Guess who's unnaturally excited about math tubs?!?!

Ok...are you ready for a HUGE teacher nerd moment?? I have been SO excited about my math tubs this week! I mean, like really, super excited! Not quite Christmas excited, but dangerously close...

We're doing our counting unit, so I want to give my kids a lot of practice counting, making numbers, and sequencing numbers, so here are my differentiated math tubs:

Tub 1:
We're making numbers 11-20 with geo-boards and practicing putting the 1 first in these tricky teen numbers.

You can get these number geoboard cards for FREE {HERE}.

Need more help with this concept? Here's a catchy little video to watch (seriously...it'll be in your head all day...)


Tub 2:
It's probably not going to be the favorite station, but good ol' fashion handwriting is always a need.  . I love the worksheet below. It's free from a site where students can write to 10, 25, 50 or 99/100.

Get this freebie {HERE}

Tub 3:
My school is working on becoming a STEAM school, so my kiddos are working on this marble run activity at our STEAM station. Kids are practicing working together to build a structure that the marble will roll down as well as looking at the motions of the marble.

Tub 4:
This tub is good ol' fashioned counting. Students complete a differentiated counting sheet or a spinner sequencing game. Then they choose the "Count and Link" elephants from Lakeshore or a counting puzzle I think I got from Wal-Mart.

Tub 5:
More building numbers! Here the students are using unifix cubes to build numbers 1-10 and make sure they're going the right way. They have a model that shows how many cubes to use for each number, but boy was this station tough!! This little guy got it, though!

Get these mats for free {HERE}

Tub 6:
Computers!!! A crowd favorite. My kids went to Starfall and ABCya and chose math games to play.

So those are my 6 tubs. Not all of my math tubs are differentiated, but some are. For these tubs, I let kids know which activity to do with different shapes. Each child's name tag has a shape on it (written with a vis-a-vis marker so groups are easy to change). The bags at the differentiated stations also have shapes on them. Kids have to get their activity from the bag with the matching shape. Of course they need help with this at first, but I know they'll catch on quickly.

That's all, folks!

Counting Bags and free recording sheets!

Counting bags! This is one of my favorite counting activities. On the outside, the bags have a colored sticker. On the inside, they have counting bears of the same color. SOOOO coordinated, right? Plus, it keeps certain small children from arguing about whose bear it is. Phew!

 

 

I have 2 recording sheets. The first group is focused on counting the bears. They color the bag on their sheet the same color as the bag they are using, count the bears with the help of tens frames, and record the number. I focused on 11-20, but you could use any numbers.

 

 

The next recording sheet is for my kids who have the basic counting skill down. They count the bears, record the number, record what the tens frames look like, and record 1 more and 1 less.

 

The key to this is always having at least 1 more bag than you do students. That way, if 1 kid gets finished, they can move to the next bag and don't have to wait for someone else to finish. You can get these recording sheets for free {HERE} I hope you and your kiddos enjoy!

Falling Back!

Howdy y'all! I hope you enjoyed your "falling back" extra hour of sleep last night...assuming your small children and/or pets who don't understand the concept of falling back didn't wake you up an hour early!

GUILTY!!

This is just a quick post to say I've created a Thanksgiving-themed math activity pack focusing mostly on place value 11-19, counting 11-19, and more/less/equal to. It's free in my TPT store for the next few days, so I hope you can use it!

Click the Pic to download

Numbers 11-20 flash freebie!

I should be lesson planning right now. I'm so close to being finished, but I just can't make myself put on those final touches. Instead, I'm blogging, facebooking, and watching Facing The Giants (I LOVE that movie!).

I'm also creating! Let me tell you a story...

Once upon a time there was a teacher who PRE-TESTED her kids to see what they already knew. This teacher was AMAZED because almost all of her kids already knew numbers 0-10. Wahoo! So this teacher wanted to get some activities to work on 11-20. But alas, there was not very much that she could find for free. Being the cheapskate that she is, she had a brilliant thought: She'll MAKE something! And she'll use all the fun fall clip art to remind her that it's her FAVORITE season! And she will also make a cool preview to go along with her new creation (thanks to Miss Kindergarten's fabulous tutorial!).



Click the Pic for the link

 

 

Tada!!!! (For everyone who has long since known how to do these previews, please don't laugh at how behind-the-times I am!) I'm making this a flash freebie in case there are any other cheapskates out there who like stuff for free  =)  I'm not sure how long the flash will be...might be a day, might be a week. I'm just unpredictable (and forgetful) like that!

Ok, ok, I'm going to plan now. If there are any other planning-procrastinators out there, good luck with your planning, too!