St Patricks Day Coloring Page

Pot of Gold Coloring Page

We would love to share a fun pot of gold coloring page with you perfect for St Patrick's Day! It features two sweet kids under a rainbow and will be fun for your students or children to color and decorate in March.

Some ideas:
  • share a picture book e.g. St Patrick's Day by Gail Gibbons and discuss
  • talk about the symbols of St Patrick's Day and their meaning
  • find Ireland on a globe and do some class research about their culture
  • paint a rainbow
If you are not in our free Coloring Club - we would love you to join. Simply sign up with your email to have access to our huge and growing collection of pages. You can find out more on our information page.

Super Tens

We want to share with you a free place vale game perfect for first grade and kindergarten math centers.
place value game for kindergarten

Super Tens will help your students with a range of number, counting and early arithmetic strategies.

You will need: 
  • game boards (print about 10 from the FREE file HERE), 
  • matchsticks (the coloured ones are nice), 
  • dice (optional) and worksheet/pencils (optional)

free math center
This game can be played by an individual student or a small group. Students will work towards making groups of ten (by putting matchsticks on, as hair) and calculating the total by counting in tens and looking at how many tens are made, and how many additional 'ones' are left over.
place value with matchsticks


Level 1 

Give the group a pile of matchsticks and get them to place them on the game boards with 1:1 correspondence and count the total. Make the pile you give them reflective of their ability (perhaps 10-30 sticks). Tell your students that each super hero can have ten sticks of hair at the most. Once ten is made, they need to start a new game board.

Level 2 

Students roll a dice, and place the same number of sticks onto the board as the number rolled. Students keep rolling and adding hair to make up tens. This will help the students that need to work on dot and number recognition and counting.

Level 3 

Students roll two dice, adding the numbers rolled, and then placing the matching number of sticks on their boards.

For levels 2 & 3, decide for your students what limit you would like to place on the group making 'Super Tens' - you might ask them to stop within a certain time frame, or when they get to a certain number. The worksheet that we have included will work with numbers up to 99.



2 digit place value

Students record the number of tens and ones they made, and write it as a numeral.

I made all the sheets in this file blackline, to make it easier for you to copy so many pages. Your students may like to colour them in after you play, or you could also print them on brightly coloured paper and laminate them.


Have fun with Super Tens!

Grab the Dragon

I learnt a wonderfully fun new maths game yesterday while working with my colleague teacher. It is one that she has played in her Number Groups for some time now. I love it! I came straight home and made a set. It is very simple to make and the best part is the countless ways it can be differentiated to cater for all needs in your classroom.

Start with a set of popsticks. You can make the set as big or small as you need. Number them with a permanent marker on the end. One number on each. I made 1-30, but a set to 100 would be ideal. Use the jumbo popsticks if you have them. I only had small at home, but next time I am at the shops I am going to stock up on the big ones!

How to play grab the dragon - ordering numbers
  • Select a group of numbers that is suitable for your small group of learners (e.g. 1-20 or 1-100).
  • Turn the sticks over. Put a little toy dragon with the sticks.


  • Each student collects 5 sticks. To differentiate, you could ask some groups to take 10. Others could take 3. The more sticks, the harder the task.

  • Students turn their sticks over and look at the numbers. 
  • They must then start to put them into order from smallest to biggest. 
  • You can, at this point, help children with the strategy of sorting. Tell them to take a stick, determine if its a relatively big, small or middle number, put it at the beginning, middle or end of the line. Once most are sorted generally, they can further differentiate by looking at two individual sticks and deciding where they should be placed in relation to one another (e.g. does 23 come before or after 26).
  • Each student sorts their own 5 sticks into correct order....
  • The first player to order their sticks, can GRAB THE DRAGON! This player may be determined the winner. If time permits, you could ask your students to play 4 or even 5 rounds of this game. I told you it was fun! And simple! A teacher's two favourite words!

Milk Shake Tens and Some Finds!

 
This weekend, I put the finishing touches on a project that has been on my desktop for around a month... It is a cute and fun little way to get your students to practise making combinations that make ten on a ten frame - or twenty frame.
 
This could easily be done using basic classroom equipment, or to 'pretty things up
 you can grab our file at TpT HERE to print labels, frames and worksheets.
 
You need double sided counters/chips for this game. Or you can make your own - by adding a sticker to the back of a set of counters you already have in your classroom.
 
 
You can use a plain milk carton/bottle, or print out our cute little label. We printed ours on sticky paper (love that stuff!)...
 
Make sure you clean your milk bottle and let it dry thoroughly. Otherwise you will be in for a very bad smell!

 
Once prepared, you add your counters to the bottle...
 
 
And shake, shake, shake that milkshake goooood!




Spill the counters from the bottle and see how they land..
 

 
Arrange them on your ten frame to show how they landed.


 
And record your combinations. You could ask your students to rotate their ten frame and record the number sentence in reverse e.g. 6+4 AND 4+6!


 
Here are a couple of wonderful things I have noticed in the last week or so!
 
Primary Penmenship font from Kimberly. LOVE! SO neat and clean!
 
 
These Tens and Ones Worksheets from Teach With Laughter. Amazing product and amazing value!
 
Cyndie, over at Chalk One Up for the Teacher has an amazing giveaway happening - don't miss out! Find it HERE
 
 
Brooke from Teachable Moments has 2 great freebies for kindergarten maths! Find them HERE 
Thanks Brooke!
 
 
Have a wonderful Sunday my friends!
 
 


 


Valentine's Day Number Fun

I have a deliciously sweet and fun way for students to practice numbers and counting in your math lessons- right in time for Valentine's day!
Valentines's Day Math Activities

I have made a set of printable cut-and-paste worksheets for Valentine's Day

They will help your students count and order numerals in the different counting ranges 1-50. 

You can find them at TpT HERE




I would love to share a free sample with you today. Find it in Google Drive HERE

Valentines's Day Math Activities

Start with the worksheet. Cut out the numbered pieces.

Valentines's Day Number Puzzles


Valentines's Day First Grade Activities

Place the numbered pieces on the desk. Talk to your students about the numbers. Identify the lowest number. Then together, sequence the numbers in counting order. Glue the numbers in order on the frame provided on the worksheet.
Once dry, colour the Valentine's themed picture in!
Valentines's Day Fun Coloring

That's all for tonight my dear friends - be sure to check in at the other great blog hop posts if you missed any.

If you liked that freebie, please be sure t o sign up to my newsletter so I can send you exclusive downloads in the future!

Mel x

Pencil Grip Tip


Are you trying to get your kindergarten students to remember to tuck those last two fingers away when holding their pencil? Tell them to IMAGINE that they are holding a counter/chip with these fingers - leaving the other three to control and stabilise the pencil.

If you need some fun printable activities for prewriting and fine motor skills, be sure to stop by our TpT store HERE



FREE Write in and Win Bingo Board Worksheet

Head over to TpT to find this very simple activity that is perfect for using with any teaching content, and almost any grade!


Just ask your students to add some content (e.g. you could put a selection of focus sounds on the board for them to choose from, or numbers) and play a fast and fuss free game of bingo!




Too easy and lots of fun! This is a great standby activity or if you don't quite know what class you might be teaching as a sub or casual teacher!

New Font For You

I have made a new font (Pond Stuff) and want to share it with you from our TpT store.

This font is perfect for when you need a very cute kid writing-style font!

Here are some messages we made with the font! You could use this font for worksheets, posters, classroom signs or notes home.