Project Recycle! Create!: Math from Egg Cartons

Egg Cartons suggest math to me.  I think it's all those nice even compartments.  Even before I joined the Recycle!Create! group I had already done a skip counting practice activity from an egg carton.

 My four-year-old daughter absolutely loves it, and even asks for it when it's put away.

Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks math when trying to re-use old egg cartons.   Take a look at these great projects that I found on the Recycle! Create!  Link-up.



Color Sort from Powerful Mothering

Number Exploration by Sparkle and Pook This is an introduction to counting.

Counting Activity from an Egg Carton by There's Just One Mommy This one is to practice counting.

A Ten Frame by Teaching Every Day Would be great as an introduction or review of counting to 10, and I love her detailed explanation all the benefits from this activity!

Mancala from Marie's Pastiche I was going to do this until I came across her post.  I am glad she linked it up because she has a fantastic explanation of the game's background.  You can try this with wee little ones and it challenges adults too!

Our own "Dumb Soldiers": Robert Louis Stevenson project

This activity can be used to address the following Next Generation Science Standards 

K-ESS2-1.	Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time

K-ESS2-2.	Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs.

April is poetry month, and we are doing a few simple poetry projects.  Poetry has always been one of my favorite subjects.

Last week, we read A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.

We started by reading "The Dumb Soldier", a poem about a toy soldier left purposely in the yard so that he could report on the goings on there.   I pointed out how Stevenson chose words that paint a beautiful picture.  We went over a few terms that I expected to be tricky, like "dumb".  We talked about what was meant by "sea" of grass, and whether the soldier could actually see.

T-Rex and the Pony Artist created their own soldiers from our store of clean trash and a few other craft supplies. Before they started, we discussed what types of material would do well outside in the rain.

Here are the finished soldiers!

They found stations for their soldiers in the yard where they felt they would be safe.

All week we enjoyed more selections from A Child's Garden of Verses. T-Rex  and Pony Artist enjoyed their own yard and the spring weather.  On Friday, they were eager to bring in their soldiers and write their own tales.

Thank-you to Christy of Christy's House of Chaos for inspiring our poetry studies.  She wrote a fascinating post on Christina Rossetti  includes some great extension activities. You can check it out at http://housefulofchaos.com/christina-rossetti/.

Happy April Fools!  In honor of the holiday, I purposely included some misinformation in this post. Can you guess what it is?

How does playing dominoes count for math class?

One of our school activities this week was dominoes.  Here's how I use it to cover specific math objectives.

First, let's remember that there are math skills built into the game of dominoes.  Understanding the rules of dominoes requires matching and pattern making skills.  Trying to win the game develops analytical and strategic skills which are valuable in mathematical problem solving all the way to the collegiate level.

When my kids were first learning to count, I would point to the animal that was laid down and count how many there were.  When they felt comfortable, they imitated me.

Now that my four-year-old is comfortable counting past six, and interested in addition (benefits of following a sibling!), I point out that there are six bees and six more bees.  "How many is that all together? One, two, three...eleven, twelve!" 

During the course of our game she interupted me.  "No, Mom, let me count."  While I do believe my child to be exceptional, I think most kids will do this naturally if it's modeled on a pleasant way.

My five-year-old has the concept of addition down and needs to work on counting higher numbers.  I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce multiplication.  "Look, we have four sets of donkeys and each set has four donkeys in it.  How many does that make?  One, two.."  We also used some skip counting.

A key to making this an effective lesson for my children is  that I never require them to count.  I just model happily on every turn.  When they are ready, they copy.  Requiring them to stretch for a new skill would add stress and take away not only the fun, but also the effectiveness of the lesson.

Does just playing dominoes cover a sufficient amount of math?  It depends on what your objective is, and how you play.  For my objectives this week, I believe it did.

What games do you enjoy at math time?

Linked up with other great kid learning posts at 

Egg Carton Skip Counting with Printables

This activity addresses several different skills.   For kindergarten purposes, it most directly addresses the Common Core objective CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.B.4 ,  Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities;connect counting to cardinality.   However, it is also preparation for multiplication, and a fine motor exercise.

Read more at Thriving STEM.

Skip counting by 2's: A visual kinesthetic activity

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!  Ours was full and happy.  Today, we jumped back into school, even though I felt a little under-prepared.  Within the next two months, we are planning to move (again, just a couple of miles this time) and welcome a new family member!  Obviously, I am on the look out for ways to make learning fun and easy for all of us.  Please post in the comments if you have a great resource to share.

One of my friends gave us a copy of Life of Fred Apples,  by Stanley Schimdt which we enjoyed twice, and just before Christmas, Life of Fred Butterflies arrived in the mail.  My kids find the books hilarious, and my son is really motivated to do the exercises at the end, in order to earn the right to progress to the next chapter.  The Schimdt jumps right in with counting by fives in Life of Fred Apples.  Now in Life of Fred Butterflies, he is asking for counting by twos.  This is a second grade  skill according to Common Core, and a little tricky for my five-year-old.  I came up with this exercise to make it more concrete.  

The only materials needed are a measuring tape and a bunch of clothespins.  Before we got started I read, Penguin Pairs:Counting by 2's  by Amanda Doering Tourville which we had borrowed from our local library.  After we finished, I directed my son to begin with two and put a clothes pin on every second number.   He went to work eagerly.  As he worked, I asked, "What's that number?"  If he was not sure, I helped him get the correct name which helps us work toward our kindergarten level objective of being able to name all the numbers up to one hundred. (CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.A.1).

When he finished, he was so proud he insisted on taking a photo of his own.  

Later, when we came to the related question in Life of Fred, he referred back to his number line.

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     Egg Carton Skip Counting

Decomposing numbers into pairs, Duplo activity

This week, we're working on decomposing numbers into their pairs.  For example, three and seven make ten. 

Our materials are pretty simple.  We are using the same box of magnetic numbers that I showed you in my post, Addition at the Fridge, a metal board that allowed us to have our lesson on the front porch rather than in the kitchen, and several Duplos.

Finish reading at Thriving STEM.

Non-writing Kindergarten Math Assessment

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Addition at the Fridge we have been using to practice math.  Once my son was showing a reasonable level of mastery, I put together this simple assessment.  I wanted to have something that I could file to showcase the level of achievement he has obtained.

The assessment itself was printed from Handwriting For Kids. Yes, that is a little ironic.  I will definitely be using this site again in the future.  It took only a few minutes to choose the number of problems, and the range of difficulty and hit print,easiest assessment writing of my life.  I picked up some number stickers at the dollar store, which he could use to record his answers.  Since I wanted to know what he could do from memory, the abacus was not part of this activity.

I was pleased with the results, and my son is hoping for a quiz again soon!

Measuring Length

This week, I have been posting about my new physics unit for kindergarten through second grade.  Before we jumped into the final investigation, we needed to learn a new skill, measuring length!

I prepared a simple presentation that demonstrates how to measure correctly.  You can access it along with the other free materials that support this unit by accessing my Teachers Pay Teacher page.  I kept my explanation to a simple, three-step process.  Line up the zero with one edge of the object, read the number on the other edge of the object, add the appropriate units.  

This is a great time for tactile practice.  My son entertained himself for over twenty minutes measuring objects around the house.  He was still working on nomenclature, so that was the skill we reinforced.  Older students could work on fractions or decimals as they find left over halves or 0.5's.  We made verbal notations of the measurements, but students who are comfortable writing could easily make a list of objects and their lengths.

The opportunity to work with a real tool is the key to student engagement in this lesson.  If I was a working with a classroom, I would keep my eyes peeled at yard sales for interesting measuring implements.  For a faster solution, you might consider some little tape measures like these. 

  As a high school physics teacher, one of my favorite amusements was watching students who had believed themselves to be less intelligent than their peers discover that they were good at one of the most difficult sciences.  This activity is a similar opportunity for younger students who may struggle with paper and pencil style work.  Hopefully, the motivation spills over to other subjects.

Kindergarten Math: Addition at the Fridge

  This has been my son's favorite kindergarten activity so far.   I think this particular method works well for us because it uses manipulatives, and requires little writing.  

We use clothespins with magnets attached to post flash cards on the refrigerator.  He answers the equation by placing the correct number magnet at the bottom of the equation.  If he knows the answer from memory, he can skip to checking his work.

Finish reading at Thriving STEM.

Matchbox Math: Counting to twenty

 My son is really into his matchbox cars right now.  My mother-in-law says my husband was the same way at this age, and she has generously supplied most of his fleet.  We have been using the cars to practice counting, and he actually asks if we can count cars.  To help him understand the symmetry between one through ten and eleven through twenty, I drew this quick parking lot one day last week.  My son has seen plenty of numbered parking spaces so it was an instant hit.

Over the weekend, I finally buckled down and made some roads from old jeans.  I found the project from LilMopTop on Pinterest.  Click here to check it out.  While I was having fun with glow in the dark paint, I decided to make a more permanent parking lot.   It is seeing some heavy use!

 I ask him to say the numbers while looking at the empty parking lot, then add a couple of cars and do it again.   He is showing great progress.  

Next, I am working on putting together a science unit involving matchbox cars.  I'm really excited to practice  with my kids. Hopefully, it will be ready share sometime next week.

Do you have any fun projects that you like to do with matchbox cars?

The Change Game:Level 1

Our family is currently residing in a hotel.  Every week or so I go to the desk ask for alot of quarters and ones.  Quarters for the laundry, ones for the nice lady who cleans for us.  My kids are fascinated by the coins and just love to handle change. So I made a simple game for them.

Finish reading at Thriving STEM.