Counting On Addition with a Number Line

Make learning the counting on strategy for addition fun and engaging with our number line caterpillar activity cards! Just print and pop in a plastic sleeve or laminate and let your students get hands-on with dry erase markers.

Our Caterpillar Count-On activity includes 54 activity cards. Your learners will find the total for a range of addition problems from 10+10 to 19+1. All totals are 20 or less.

Each card features an addition problem and a count-on number line caterpillar for each student to use to solve the problem. Students draw additional bumps using a pen, to 'count on' to find the total.

This packet also includes a blackline printable worksheet - students can record the findings from some of their cards. I have also added a 'cover page' to help you sort and organize your resources.

Hop over to our TpT store to find it today!

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Addition

Christmas Tree Teaching Ideas

Here are 5 of my favorite Christmas Tree themed teaching resources or ideas! 

1. Christmas Tree Craft

This cute Christmas Tree Craft can be made as a stand alone for decorating a bulletin board or display in your classroom. Alternatively, combine it with a writing task using one of our included pages!

2. Action Rhyme - Finger Play

A fun literacy experience can be implemented with our rhyming text. Use it as a modelled read, for word study, fine motor and behavior management. 

3. Christmas Classroom Door

With our fast prep student name tags and message, your classroom will have a cosy, welcoming entrance for December. 

4. Scissor Skills Craft

The templates for this craft have thick heavy edge lines and patterned internal lines to cut - perfect for developing scissor skills.

Each project can be copied on a single page so prep is minimal!

5. End of Year Student Gift

Simply print these little poem trees out, laminate if you wish and attach to a fun-size box of Smarties. There is a little color based poem to commemorate a year of learning together.

I hope this list gives you some support during a busy time of year. Find even more tree ideas over on our website!

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Christmas

Addition on a Number Line

 Help your little learners with addition and subtraction with hands-on number line games!

They will delight in helping the animals to leap, swim, fly or crawl up and down the number lines to solve each problem. 

Ideal for a small group or an individual in independent learning time, our set of 4  games are fast to prep and will both engage your students and teach them a focused skill for math.

They draw a card, move their counter to a start position and take another card to leap along the number line to model addition or subtraction. 

The pack originally had one animal theme - we added another 3 for the same price to give you extra variety! 

We know your students will love addition with these games.

If you need more ideas for addition, be sure to browse our category page!

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Addition

Learning 2D Shapes with Reindeer

Use our activity mats with play dough, markers or small equipment to combine a focused content area with creativity and fine motor. 

Our Reindeer 2D Shapes will help your students learn about shapes and encourage them to build fine motor skills and strength.

Students roll log shape dough and twist, size and shape them to create 2D shape reindeer faces! They can say the simple rhyme as they make it.

The set  includes 10 mats - square, circle, triangle, rectangle, pentagon, hexagon, octagon, rhombus, trapezoid and oval. 

A tracing worksheet is also included.

You may like to watch our reindeer shaped animated story too:

You can find activities and ideas to complement Shape Reindeer on the website!

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2D Shapes, play dough, Winter

Christmas Writing Crafts

Quick Crafts are one page pictures to cut. There is no gluing or assembly required! A perfect display option for kindergarten and first grade!

Each pack includes cute characters for your students to color or paint. They can then trim around the dashed line and glue on colored paper if you choose!

Each design is provided in a lined and unlined version - ask students to write a sentence or two.

They could also:

• draw a picture
• copy a sentence
• write collaboratively with the class
• research and record a fact

This newly released Christmas set includes:

• Santa
• gift
• Santa's sack
• tree
• elf
• snowman
• gingerbread man
• baby Jesus
• Santa hat
• reindeer
• holly
• angel

Find them in our store today!

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Christmas, Craft for Kids

Winter Robin Shape Craft

We added a new shape craft to our collection - Winter Bird! This cute little robin with a Santa hat can help your little learners integrate their knowledge of 2D shapes with creativity. 

From this activity you can choose to tech or review:

• identifying and naming 2D shapes
• flipping, rotating and arranging shapes to create a picture
• fine motor - coloring, cutting, layering shapes, gluing
• reading and writing - labelling and recording the shapes used

More Ideas

Artwork

After students have created their little bird, ask them to tear paper. From torn white paper they can create a snow covered ground for robin to walk on and snowflakes. 

Show them how to use their thumb and pointer to tear paper carefully and create a shape. 

Step by Step

The pack includes a step-by-step guide. Project this on your board to help guide students. 

• ask a student to describe the next step to the class - this will encourage the language of position and order
• use it as a directed drawing

Tracing

For your youngest of learners, use the tracing page. There is no cutting or gluing - just a focus on pen control. 

Use crayon and watercolors for a lovely art experience. 

One Page Craft

Our One Page Crafts are a favorite because they are super fast to prep. Just one page per students and everything is ready. Your learners can use pencil or markers to color each section. 

Traditional Template Version

Use these pages to copy for more than one student. They are great if you would like to use colored paper - e.g. copying 24 bird beaks on orange paper. These will just need to be roughly cut up before you start your lesson. 

Have a student helper distribute a different section around the class desks to ensure everyone has all the pieces they need. 

Find this new shape craft over in our store!

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2D Shapes, Craft for Kids

Teaching Consonant Digraphs

Have you met Happy Letter H? He helps some other letter friends make new sounds!

Our pack of engaging printables helps you introduce consonant digraphs in a fun and engaging way!

Included in our pack are:

• letter character shapes - make stick puppets or use as posters
• consonant digraph letter characters - ch, sh, th, wh, ph
• word cards (all decodable)
• all-in-one poster for reference
• 5 review worksheets - students read words and write from the word bank into the letter shapes

Use the visuals as posters or puppets to teach your students how Happy H combines with his friends c, s, t and p to make new sounds!

• make stick puppets with the letters to show how they play and make sounds
• use the digraph cards to show how a new sound is made when Happy H is with his friend
• teach one at a time or all at once
• lesson details provide to guide you

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Digraphs

Left and Right Math Craft

Did you see our new rhyming text, finger play - A Kind Bee?

In it bee flies to the left and right.

Today I thought I would share with you a few ideas for teaching positional language so you can extend upon the rhyme into your math lessons.

Ideas for Left & Right

• Left and right days - have a special day where students wear something on their left or right wrist (ribbon, tie, bracelet etc) - perhaps red for right and yellow (lemon) for left
• Tapping Sticks - if you use tapping sticks in your percussion or music activities, paint a red strip around some and yellow around the others - encourage your students to hold the red in their right hand and yellow in their left. Here they'll be integrating movement, sound, beat and a math concept to build powerful memories of left and right!
• Passing Game - play a passing game with a ball and students can only pass with their left hand or foot
• Do the Hokey Pokey - need I say more? It's always a favorite!
• Picture Talks - use a clear picture or photo to encourage a math talk. Encourage students to describe the picture in terms of where the objects are positioned. Perhaps you may like to scribe their sentences and display them with the picture.
• Make a classroom visual by tracing your hands

Kind Bee Picture Talk

Use the picture from our finger play printable for a math talk. 

• seat students in front of you
• tell them that you would like them to describe the picture
• ask them to look carefully at the picture and name the things they see - e.g. Here is a bee, a cloud, a flower, a hive and clouds.
• review some positional language if needed - e.g. above, across, behind, below, forward, further, close, center, down, in, in front of, inside, left, low, middle, near, next to, on, onto, top, under, underneath
• model your expectation for them by saying a few - e.g. There is a hive near the flowers
• ask for students to share some observations, scaffolding some support where necessary
• record some of your students sentences on strips of paper to display with the picture

Math Craft

Combine creativity with math using bee in the flower garden! After learning about positional language, your students will love making a cute bee friend to record their learning visually.

Find it in our TpT store and the Apple Tree bundle!

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A Math Focus Wall

Do you have a math wall or display to incorporate a number talk into your morning routine?

I just shared a photo on Instagram of a magnetic whiteboard that you can easily use as a base for your math wall. You can easily switch out posters, visuals and teaching aids as your students' needs change. 

Here are some links to some of our printables featured in these photos!

Let me know if there is something I can create for your math wall or focus board!

 

Big Numbers

Number of the Day Wall Poster

Number of the Day Display

Ten Frame Kids Posters

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Classroom Displays

Early Addition on a 5 Frame

Are you teaching addition in kindergarten? Our new activity mats are perfect for hands-on learning - or digital! 

Print them out to use at your small group table or send them digitally to your students with TpT Easel.

With our little crow friend, your learners will learn to count and begin addition with the support of a five frame. These engaging and age appropriate activity mats are clear, uncluttered and perfect for little hands!

There are 26 different activity mats in the pack. 

• Use them printed with a dry erase marker or play dough.
• Send them digitally to your students with Easel.
• Project one onto your class electronic board to complete and chat about together as a math talk or warm up!

To help you differentiate, we have included 2 styles of mat:

• count and write the total
• count the red apples, green apples and record the total

No addition symbol is featured '.... and .... makes......' math sentence structure is used.

Find them in our TpT store HERE

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Turkey and Friends Tracing Pages

We've added a new Big Shape Tracing pack to our growing collection - Turkey and Friends. Perfect for November, your little emerging-writers can trace the big shapes and color their page for display.  

Choose from one of 10 page designs.

Your students can trace in pencils, crayon or marker - let them choose something that gives them confidence in writing. If they enjoy the activity, they will want to write more and that is what we should aim for at this early stage. 

After tracing let students color or paint the pages - watercolor looks especially effective, as does glitter glue if you are brave! 

Find this new pack in our store today! 

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Tracing

2 More for Addition

Learning to count-on is an essential strategy for addition. Students will identify the larger number in a math problem and count froward the smaller number to find the total. 

We have a pack of 4 printable games perfect for Autumn that will help students master counting-on in kindergarten or first grade. 

Use them in centers, workshop, math groups or in your whole group lesson to ignite learning and get students excited to solve addition.

More for Fall

More for Fall is one of the 4 printable games in the pack and it includes 4 differentiation options - count on 1, 2, 3 or 4.

Students will add 1, 2, 3 or 4 to a dice throw and find the total on their board. This game is super fast to prep as there is no cutting.

Get the full pack on sale today!

Add 2 more coloring page

To complement this game, we have added a fun coloring page to our free coloring club library today! Your students can review the skills they have learnt in the game to write the totals and then color their page!

If you are not a member of the club yet, we'd love to have you. It is super simple to join, just sign up with your email. Find the details over on the website!

Hands-on help

Provide counters or a number line for students to assist their addition when completing the worksheet. Encourage a developing fluency in being able to quickly add 2 to any number. Remind students that it is very close to the 'one more' fact they most likely already know. 

2 more to the floor

A quick review activity for the end of your lesson can be to play a whole class game of 2 More to the Floor.

To play give every student a number card between 3 and 20. Call numbers between 1 and 18 and students must listen for the number that is 2 more than the number they are holding. Once they hear it, the 'hit the floor' (sit down). The last child/ren to remain standing may be declared the winners. It is fast pace game so play several rounds and get your students up and moving! 

2 More on the Board

Another fast-prep whole class game is 2 More on the Board. Give each student a number between 1 and 6 to remember. Roll a die in the middle of your group of students. When they see their number they 'race' to the board to write their number (their given number +2) on the board. Keep it fast, safe and fun with careful instructions and support.

If you are looking for more fun ideas for addition in your math program, find our growing collection through the website.

Just Released

To further support your teaching of this concept I have a set of Math Warm Up Slides that will delight your learners. Clear, uncluttered visuals will help your students build from their hands-on learning to the beginnings of a mental strategy. 

Simply click through the slides and have them call the number that is '2 more'.

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Addition

Spider Counting and Numbers Activity Page

In our coloring club library today I shared with you a spider counting page. Your students or children will count the 20 spiders and write in the missing numerals. 

Here are a few alternative ways to use the page to help differentiate for your learners.

1. Roll and Write

Ask students to roll a 20 sided dice to determine which number to write next. They will use their knowledge of the order and position of numbers to find the location for the numerals.

As a challenge you could ask students to only write in counting order - so they keep rolling until they get the next number in the sequence.

2. Dots

Students are asked to draw the number of dots on each spider to match its numeral. Tell them to draw on both sides of the spider - partitioning the number into 2 groups. 

Have a discussion on the spotty spiders and help students understand the difference between odd and even numbers. Did they notice that the odd spiders have a different number of spots on each side of their body?

 Caught in the Web

Once students have numbered the spiders they can play a game by tossing 2 counters gently on the page. They record the numbers and find the total. 

To challenge students ask them to:

• toss one counter and double it
• toss one counter and double +2
• toss 3 counters and find the total

If you're not yet a member of our coloring club we'd love to have you!

We hope you love extending your learners with these fast-prep ideas!

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counting, Spiders, Teen Numbers