The Traveling Classroom: Winter Math Activity Centers

Showing posts with label Winter Math Activity Centers. Show all posts

Friday, December 27, 2013

Winter Math Activities for PreK - 2nd Grade (FREEBIE & Giveaway)

Thetravelingclassroom is once again enjoying snow in Panama. You probably know already that it doesn't really snow here; we just pretend it does. Last year we had fun playing with cotton snowballs while learning about math.

This year, as I was preparing some math lessons, the kids peeked in to see what I was working on. They started to plead with me and ask if they could please play the games again. Of course, I obliged. What teacher mom do you know that can say no when kids are begging to learn? That was just music to my ears:)

These activities are really fun, and the kids learn a ton.

This is how we play our Winter Math Activities:

Step 1: We play a little game with the 100 chart. The kids have to count, write in the number of pennies, and stack their pennies to buy a snow ball. Once they successfully add up ten pennies, talk about exchanging it for dime, and write in the correct numbers; they are then rewarded with a cotton snowball. After we have collected all 10 snowballs, we move on to our second step.

Step 2: The kids then get to try to throw as many of their snowballs into the bucket. Sometimes we have a little race to see who can throw the fastest or who can get the most in the bucket. We then count up how many snow balls made it into the bucket. They then get their money back.

Step 3: We then use our counting sheet to see how much money everyone made while they were tossing snow balls. We used these same steps with our 5 other activities: feeding a reindeer apples, a penguin fish crackers, a snowball fight, feeding fish to a bear, and a seeing how many apples a little boy or girl can eat before they loose a tooth. Each activity uses different coins and/or paper money. The manipulatives change also. ( We have used fish crackers, cheese puffs, fish shaped cereal, apple counters, etc.)

This bundle includes everything you need for these activities (except the food:). Each activity has it's own 100 chart, graphics to decorate your buckets, paper manipulatives, and activity counting sheet.

I hope this has inspired you to have some fun this winter while teaching math. The FREE 100 chart is located in the download preview along with some other sample pages. Just click on any of the pictures above.

I would also like to give away a bundle to one of my blog visitors. Just enter below to have a chance to win.

Thanks for traveling with us...

Friday, February 8, 2013

Snow in Panama!

Snow in Panama???
Did we really have snow here? Well the kids thought so...they tossed cotton snowballs & had a snowball fight!!!

This is how it looked when we set it up...we had some cheese balls, Quaker fish cereal, little plastic balls, some REAL money, AND cotton ball snow:)

Some of my boys have always been a challenge to get motivated to sit, write, and do school work! This was a big hit! He sat, he counted, he ate, and he learned about money.

Snowballs at .10 cents a piece! Yes, we use American money here. The only difference is that the money is usually called "Balboas" instead of dollars and the coins are "centavos" instead of a penny, nickel, and dime! We also have a few extra Panamanian coins added to the mix:)

Next we reviewed using tally marks... and then added it all up to see how much we had to pay for all those snow balls we used:)

We also fed fish to a penguin and apples (and cheese balls) to a reindeer:)

We had so much fun using these they were asking for more...so I made more:)