What's Under My Thumb?

This activity was inspired by a presentation I saw with Jane Felling from Box Cars and One Eyed Jacks.  The children use dominoes to help them practice their subtraction and missing addend skills.  We are sending home the activity this week with a set of paper dominoes.  Here is a video that shows the parents how to play the game.

Place Value Scoot

Here is another idea from the blog Swamp Frog First Graders.  This activity is a great way to get kids moving and thinking about place value.

The 100th Day of School

Here are a few ideas for the 100th day of school.  This one came from the blog First Grade a la Carte.  The next idea has bounced around the Internet but my pal Kristen modified it.  It is an extension of the activity of hiding 100 Hershey Kisses around the room.

NumberFix

Have you seen the website NumberFix? Go check it out. Scroll down to the winners of the Digital Math Contest. These would be great problem solving activities.

Tic Tac Ten

I love this activity from Michelle Flaming.  It is a great way to have kids practice adding and subtracting by 10's. 

Super Cool Calculator Activity

I just learned a super cool calculator activity!  Maybe you already know about this, but I was so excited to learn it!  I am in the middle of reading Teaching Student Centered Mathematics by John Van de Walle.  In one of his chapters he talked about turning the calculator into a fact practice machine.

 Let's say you want your kids to practice their +5 facts.  They should punch in +5= into the calculator.  Then the child enters any number and says the sum of that number plus five before pressing = sign.  They can try out other numbers and the +5 = DOES NOT need to be repeated.  It will automatically add 5 to whichever number they push.   Try it out.  It is very cool.  Subtraction also works with this nifty trick.