Math TEC61210 Kindergarten More than 150 favorite activities and skill sheets Creative ideas to teach key math skills The best math activities from The Mailbox magazine 10 11 12 2 Randy Rectangle 8 5 4
Table of Contents Number and Operations...3 Welcome to the Math Rodeo: Number Comparison Skills...8 A Gathering of Guinea Pigs: Number Concepts... 13 Bunnies Sum It Up: Addition... 19 Adding and Subtracting at the Picnic...26 Cent-sational Math Ideas: Money...32 Patterns Presenting: The Patterns Fun Fair...39 Geometry Shopping for Shapes...50 Shapely Skateboarding...57 Positional Words With the Gingerbread Man...67 Measurement Plant the Measurement Seed...70 Weighing In at the Produce Stand...76 Time for Summer: Telling Time...80 Data Analysis Graphs Galore!...83 Multiple Skills Welcome to the Math-Review Zoo...86 Learning Centers...95 Building Math Skills... 104 Group Time!... 123 Skills Index... 127
Count on this crop of number sense activities to help your little ones harvest an abundance of math skills. by Lucia Kemp Henry, Fallon, NV Collect Your Crops Fall is the perfect time to harvest seasonal items for a great crop of math manipulatives! Purchase or ask parents to donate ten mini pumpkins, ten short ears of dry Indian corn, ten decorative gourds, and two bags of unshelled walnuts. Then invite students to use these items in a creative cornucopia of harvest-themed math activities. to Ten Bring in the Start the truck; it s harvesttime! This clever truck prop and the song below will have youngsters asking for this activity over and over again. To prepare, use an opaque projector to enlarge the truck and side panel patterns on page 6 so that the truck is approximately four feet in length. Trace the patterns on pieces of bulletin board paper twice. Color and cut out the patterns and then glue them to opposite sides of a large cardboard box to make a three-dimensional truck. Cut the box as shown. Then place ten ears of Indian corn, ten gourds, ten mini pumpkins, and ten walnuts in groups on the floor to represent a farm field at harvesttime. Set out four baskets. To begin, have students imagine that they work on a farm and need to harvest vegetables and nuts to sell. Next, invite volunteers to help gather and count the pumpkins and put them in a basket as the class sings the first verse of the song. Then have students load the basket into the truck. Repeat the song, substituting the other harvest items. Now that s a successful harvest! (sung to the tune of Ten Little Indians ) One little, two little, three little [pumpkins]. Four little, five little, six little [pumpkins]. Seven little, eight little, nine little [pumpkins]. Ten little [pumpkins] in the truck.
Recognizing numerals Drawing objects to equal a numeral Booklet Reinforce youngsters number skills with this truck-shaped booklet loaded with harvest-themed counting! In advance, make a class set of pages 6 and 7. Cut nine 4 1 2" x 5 1 2" white paper booklet pages for each child. Have each child cut out his truck patterns, cover, and text strips. Instruct him to glue a different strip to each page. Stack each child s pages in order behind the cover and staple them to the truck pattern where indicated. Then staple the side panel to the truck as shown. Next, have him illustrate each page to reinforce the text and then color the truck. Encourage each child to share his booklet with a classmate and then take it home to share with his family. Mark by And 10 apples for me! Farms 10 Farms 5 Writing numbers Drawing objects to equal a numeral Produce Posters In the fall, produce stands display colorful signs advertising seasonal crops for sale. Invite your kindergarten counters to spruce up numeral posters with drawings of similar seasonal produce. To prepare, label ten separate cards with a numeral from 1 to 10; place the cards in a small bag. Conceal a supply of Indian corn, mini pumpkins, and gourds in a large bag. Cut one panel from the wide side of a paper grocery bag for every two students. Then have pairs of students take one number card and one harvest item from the bag. Instruct one student to use a marker to write the numeral on a corner of the pair s bag panel. Next, on white paper, have each pair draw the appropriate number of its harvest item. Instruct the pair to cut out the drawings and glue them on the panel. When the posters are completed, display them on a wall in counting order. Corn, gourds, and pumpkins make counting as easy as 1, 2, 3! Comparing sets using more, less, and equal Groups of Nuts Cut brown craft foam to resemble unshelled nuts (or use brown pom-poms). Place the nuts in a bowl and use them to introduce sets and number comparison. Set out two paper plates on a table along with the bowl of nuts. Working with two students, secretly instruct one child to count out a given number of nuts and put them on a plate. Have the other child do the same with a different number of nuts. Next, direct the youngsters to visually compare the nut sets and guess which set has more. Then have the students count the nuts on the plates to find out. Continue the activity with different numbers of nuts. Encourage students to compare their sets using the words more, less, and equal. What a nutty way to compare numbers!
Crop-Filled Centers Numeral recognition How Many Pumpkins? Set up an independent counting center with this pumpkin harvest idea. Prepare a set of number cards and put them in a small cornucopia-shaped basket. Display the cornucopia and a supply of mini pumpkins in a center along with a child s wagon or the truck prop from Bring in the on page 3. To use the center, have a child take a card from the basket, read the number, and place that number of pumpkins in the wagon or truck. Perfect pumpkin counting! One-to-one correspondence Corn in the Field Invite students to practice one-to-one correspondence in their very own classroom cornfield! To make cornstalks, paint ten paper towel tubes green. Make two half-inch cuts in one end of each tube. Insert a three-ounce plastic cup into the cut end of each tube to make a sturdy base. Secure the end of the tube to the cup with tape. Cut narrow leaves from brown lunch bags and glue them to each tube as shown. Then put the stalks and ten ears of corn at a center. Have each child select a number of stalks and put one ear of corn inside the top of each one to make a complete corn plant. Then have the child count the cornstalks and the ears of corn. Sequencing numbers Nutty Center Here s a counting center that is really nutty! To set up the center, label ten 3" x 5" cards with a different number from 1 to 10. Attach each card to a plastic mesh berry basket. Put the baskets in a center along with a large supply of brown craft foam nut cutouts or brown pom-poms (nuts). To use the center, a child reads the numeral on a basket, counts an equivalent number of nuts, and then puts them in the basket. After all the baskets have been filled with the appropriate number of nuts, have her arrange the baskets in order from 1 to 10 to make a nutty produce stand display. 5
Truck and Booklet Pattern Use with Bring in the on page 3 and Booklet on page 4. side panel Staple pages here. And 10 apples for me! Staple side panel here. 10 Farms TEC61210 6 Best of The Mailbox Math The Mailbox Books TEC61210