My students love when we use food for math.  I always find that my students are so engaged and excited about it.  This is probably because they know they get a little treat when they finish!   I recently posted an image on Instagram of an idea that I thought of for tens and ones using m&m candies.

  I had the idea to use the snack size bags of m&m's for the lesson.  I may have sampled a bag just to make sure there would be the right amount of m&m's.  I planned to have my students find how many m&m's they have in their bag, how many groups of ten, and how many extra ones.  I knew it would fit perfectly with the Common Core standards we have been focusing on:

K.NBT.1a Compose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each composition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 18 = 10 + 8)
K.NBT.1b Decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each decomposition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 18 = 10 + 8)

 I first modeled this activity for my students.  Modeling is definitely important with our young learners so they know exactly what is expected of them.  Then I sent them off to their seats to work.  They loved it and did such a nice job with the lesson!

If you want to use this with your students, click the image below to grab the FREE download!

If you are looking for more teen number resources, check out these resources in my Teachers Pay Teacher store!

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Recipe for Teaching

I am always trying to find fun and engaging ideas for my kindergarten students to have during reading centers.  The reading centers that I have in my classroom are writing, library, computer, message, iPad, poetry, letter magnets, word work, pocket chart, be the teacher, and independent reading.  The centers in my classroom are literacy based and I make sure they are developmentally appropriate for my kindergarten students.  They include hands-on activities for learning.  A few weeks ago I picked up this food set:

As soon as I saw that turkey, I instantly thought of an idea for a center for my students!  I knew that I wanted to let them build their own Thanksgiving Day plate of food and then draw and write about the foods they used.   I decided to call this center the "Imagination Center."  My plan is to change it out with ideas where they are playing and learning because PLAY is LEARNING.(My friend Alex, from The Kindergarten Connection, has an AMAZING post about play that you can check out here.)  I just introduced this center last week and my students were so excited about it!

I love that plate of food that my student in the picture above made.  Spaghetti, hot dogs, turkey, and more!   If you would like to use this in your classroom, you can download the FREE plate recording sheet by clicking the image below!

Also, be sure to stop by my Teachers Pay Teacher store to grab these FREE Thankful Tags for students, coworkers, and volunteers!  Click the image to head on over to my store and download them.

 

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Recipe for Teaching

I absolutely love using ten frame activities with my students.  I love that they help my students with subitizing, determining how many more to make ten, counting by tens, and so much more.  

 We use ten frames within our calendar routines each day by adding a counter to the ten frame to represent a day of school.  We also have different ten frame activities at our math stations.

Students using GoNoodle Ten Frames.  You can grab those ten frame mats in my blog post by clicking here.

Students using Ten Frame Clip It.  You can find this in my TpT store here.

I just recently had the idea to get red and yellow plates from the Dollar Tree to look like the red and yellow counters and use bulletin board paper to make an extra large double ten frame.

I used my projector to help me with drawing the ten frames on the bulletin board paper.  My students instantly knew what the plates were supposed to be when I put the ten frames out and showed them the plates.  They were definitely excited!

I created these ten frame images representing 1 - 20.  If you are interested in using them, you can just right click and save the images to your computer! 

 

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Recipe for Teaching