Activities & Games
Place Value Styrofoam CupsGrade: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th
Using cheap styrofoam cups to illustrate place value and digits. |
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Teaching Commutative Property and Fact Families via ColorGrade: K, 1st
CCSS Math standards don't require Grades K, 1st to learn the Commutative Property by name. |
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Bar Graph SpongesGrade: TK-6
Upper grades could make each sponge a different unit. |
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How Many Cubes Am I Hiding?Grade: K, 1st
Using understanding of "partners", student deduce how many objects a teacher is hiding behind his/her back. Doing this game with the benchmark numbers of 5 or 10 would probably be most common, but the game could be performed with any number. |
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Guess My NumberGrade: K
Students use deduction to try to guess the teacher's number. Questions you could gradually model might include:
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Kinder Math 5-FrameGrade: K
Some fun ways for Kindergarten students to engage with 5. Also great use of sentence frames. |
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Mingle & CountGrade: K
Students move around to make a number. |
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"Fun"dred ChartsGrade: K, 1st
Builds number sense. |
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Making a Ten with Playing CardsGrade: 1st, 2nd
Players combine two cards to make a ten. |
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Addition/Subtraction War and Dice Place Value WarGrade: 1st, 2nd
Playing Cards: Students add and subtract numbers and then winner collects all of the cards for that round. The player with the most cards at the end wins the game. Dice: Students roll three dice to try to create the largest number. One might consider making this more rigorous. |
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Race Up/Down to 100Grade: 1st, 2nd
This game can be played either by adding until one player reaches 100, or can be played in reverse in which subtracting from 100 until one player reaches 0. |
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Trashcan Game & 101 and Out
Grade: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
Addresses understanding of place value. This game could be modified for various grade levels by adjusting how many place values to incorporate and perhaps the number of mandatory rolls for each player. The game could also be played in reverse with subtraction. Click on the actual title of the video on the right to download supporting materials from TeachingChannel. |
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Money Exchange Place Value GameGrade: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th
Players explore the base ten system by exchanging money units. While this video uses ones, tens, and hundreds, the game could be modified for upper grades by using decimals (i.e., pennies and dimes). First graders could play just with ones and tens. |
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How Close to 100?
Grade: 3rd, 4th, 5th
Super fun! Players take turns rolling a pair of dice, from which they develop a multiplication sentence that they must turn into an array and draw onto a 100 grid. The goal of the game is to strategically fill up as much of the 100 grid as possible. Additional information and the recording sheets are available on the youcubed.com site. |
DecimalsGrade: 4th
Players add decimals to get as close to 2 wholes as possible. Click on the actual title of the video on the right to download supporting materials from TeachingChannel. |
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Jack and Jill MathGrade: K-6
Promote SMP modeling and argumentation skills by addressing common student errors. |
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