Ericas Ed-Ventures

Primary Education Ideas

Thanksgiving Math and More!

Here are my 1st grade specific math centers: 
Our math program is pretty drab (you can check out Engage NY here), so I like to liven things up with weekly math centers.   I wish there was the time in my day to do these everyday but there is not and once a week will have to do.  My first graders love math centers and don’t even realize they are practicing their facts and reinforcing the math concepts taught through Engage NY.   
The center pictures above practices finding the missing addend or part of the number bond.  It took a while to get my students not to add the part to the whole.  By having them place the whole number of chips in the “Whole” spot on the work-mat and then drag the part down, they were able to visually see the missing part. 

 I needed a hallway display and my turkey feather math craft has always been a favorite of mine.  I updated this a bit from my Thanksgiving packet to include printable feather and body templates.   It also follows the number bond model.

 Engage NY does not utilize 10 frames in the first grade curriculum, instead they call them “five groups” and do not include the frame around it.  I don’t agree with this.  Most students lack the fine motor and visual perception to make five groups without a frame.   Therefore, I utilize ten frames in my math centers and on my anchor charts.   For this center, I have also include a recording sheet where the equal sign is in the beginning.

Word problems in first grade at this time of year!  You have to see the ones included in the math program we use, ridiculously challenging.   Since this was a required topic, I decided to make my own word problems with the numbers not spelled out and include some visuals.   I also included the answer as a sentence on the word problem card.  Then I created the recording sheet to help the students with their work.  I would still recommend reading these to your students. 

Students are asked to decide which is a more efficient strategy to use on a number path: hop forward or hop back.  The idea is that if the numbers are far apart, you should hop back because that will be less hops and your answer is the number you land on.  If the numbers are closer together, you hop forward until you reach the whole number and count your hops.  

 It is always good to practice all the ways to make ten!

Thanks for stopping by!  As always feel free to pin.

Other Thanksgiving themed packets from my store:

Thanksgiving Freebies:

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Comments

  1. Erica, Did you do anything beyond Module 1? I'm in the dregs of this program this year for the first time, and I'm looking for anything to help with module 3.