I am so happy to be part of the Bright Ideas Blog Hop this month! Over 200 bloggers from K-12 have featured their best ideas to make your life as a classroom teacher a little less stressful and a whole lot more fun! After you finish reading my post, be sure to visit the next blog with another “Bright Idea”! I can’t wait to read them all!
I absolutely love this time of year! My kids are really beginning to grasp the concept of number, so we are taking off with addition and subtraction. If you are not familiar with the use of number bonds,
Donna from Math Coach’s Corner has written an excellent blog post regarding number bonds. Read it! You won’t be disappointed.
My post is directed toward the “kinesthetic” aspect of working with number bonds. Kids in general, especially in kindergarten, learn by acting out concepts. Because they are more attentive during times we play games, I invented a game based on number bonds for my class that has taken off like wildfire! They ask to play it all the time. Of course, they think it is just a game. But it is much more than “just a game”. It gets them to think on a higher level without getting them confused. Here’s what we do:
Ready…Set…Split!
You need one of two possible things for calling out numbers. Either set up the 3-D dice from your smartboard toolkit with numbers 1-6 on it, or use a set of large number cards to use as a card deck you can draw from.
You also need to make 3 large circles in 3 different colors. Ours are green for the whole number, and pink and blue for the parts.
Step 1:
I choose a student to roll the dice and choose however many people the dice says the group will be made up of. That student can choose the next one to roll the dice when their turn is over.
Step 2: Student who rolled the dice (or drew the card with the number on it) picks ____number of students to stand by the
green group dot. The student then announces, “Ready, Set, Split!”
Step 3: Students run to the part dots (remember part, part, whole).
Teacher: Stands by each group and says, “You can choose to
write 2+3=5, or 3+2=5. What will you write?
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