Breakin' It Down

Laura Candler over at Corkboard Connections is having a link up!

She has great tips on organizing and running your math centers. You will also find tons of great freebies to fill your math station so head on over and check it out!

Using math stations has really helped my kids have fun while they master their facts.  They love the play and I love the practice. Here's a freebie pack of activities based on some addition strategies to get things rolling in your math stations!  Just click the pic to download.

Speaking of rolling, if you are like me and the thought of dice ricocheting off the ceiling (not that I've ever experienced anything like that) makes you break out in hives, I've got the perfect solution! 

Drop your dice into clear travel containers and be rid of renegade dice forever!  Be sure to use foam dice unless you want to integrate a music lesson involving maracas into your math stations.  

 I found these eraser dice at Target in the back to school stuff and they work perfectly.  Leave these in a basket with the Shake, Rattle, and Roll recording sheet and your kids will be ready to shake away!

I use addition strategies when it comes to tackling the math facts because my kids can get easily overwhelmed.  Quite frankly, so can I.

 Their eyes get glazed over as they stare at the huge deck of flashcards that need to be memorized.  

That's why I like to break it down.  I like to give them a small set of facts and a strategy to use.  This gives us the chance to master a small set, do the happy dance, and move on to the next set while we are in the groove.  If we have to wait until we have memorized this

to do the happy dance...there's not a whole lot of dancing going on and I.like.to.happy.dance.  A LOT.  Like I said, break-it-down (totally said in my best rapper voice...and yes I'm wearing gold chains).

In addition to visiting math stations, my kids love to play Around the World.  I used to try to pick out all the cards that went with my strategies, but that made me crazy since the cards are two sided.  I ended up making my own sets based on the strategies I use.  Click the pic below to download the Doubles, Doubles +1, and Make a Ten strategies set.  If you don't know how to play Around the World you can find the directions on this great site along with other games that can be played to practice math facts!