Big Hexagons with Pattern Blocks

Engage your little mathematicians with some fun pattern block activity cards! They will arrange pattern blocks to copy a big hexagon design card and gradually hide hedgehog as they add each new block!

The printable pack includes 25 designs and a building mat!



Use them:

• in small group math 
• as an independent learning center activity
• in morning bins
• as a fast-finisher 

Find more games and activities with pattern blocks on our website page too!

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Math Center, pattern blocks

Apple Pattern Banner

Combine math and classroom decor with our decorative apple pennants! I'm sharing them with you from my TpT store! 

Use the yellow, pink and green pennants to create a repeating patterns. Make lots of different patterns with your students as a mini-lesson and then vote on the pattern to display in the classroom. A blackline version is available too if you'd prefer students to color or paint them!

Some patterns could be:

• pink, yellow, green, pink, yellow, green
• pink, pink, yellow, pink, pink, yellow
• green, pink, green, pink, green pink

I printed these pennants at 4-to-a-page to make them tiny!





As well as making and talking about the patterns with your class:

Movement Patterns

• ask your students how the pattern could be shown in movements
• e.g. pink, yellow, green could be jump, leap, hop, jump, leap, hop
• encourage students to perform a pattern in a movement or PE lesson

Circle Clap

• ask students how the pattern could be heard in sound
• e.g. pink, yellow, green could be clap, tap, click finger
• ask students to perform the pattern with sounds

Number Pattern

• ask students how the pattern could be shown with numbers
• e.g. pink, yellow, green could be 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3
• ask students to write the number pattern

Coloring Page

Over in the coloring club you can find an apple page - you could also have your students paint or color to match the display pattern!

Find the pennants with an accompanying digital recording page - over in my store!

Also available is a set of pattern activity cards - great for morning bins, small group math or learning centers. 

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Patterns

Making Ten First - Addition in Math

Supplement your lessons on addition within 20 with our practical worksheets for addition on a ten frame. The two ten frames will require students to perform and see the bridging (or making) strategy in action! They will make a ten first. 

In the example below they will see 3 as being partitioned into 2 and 1, to make the 10 before finding a total of 11.

It is important to play games and use hands-on equipment in your lessons first. The worksheets give students a practical way to practice what they have learnt and review the key parts of the concept. 



I recently updated the pack to give you 25 worksheets and access to a digital activity that would make a perfect lesson introduction, math warm up or explanation on how to complete the pages! 

Find them over in our store.

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Addition, Math Worksheets

Hedgehog Craft

Make this fun 3D hedgehog with your little learners with a single page printable, paint and crayons! 

Simply:

• print the page from the craft category of our Premium Coloring Club
• paint - you can do a rainbow hedgehog like me or realistic colors
• when dry, crayon the zig zags (and a few more) for handwriting development
• cut and fold
• depending on your paper thickness, you may need a staple to make him more upright

Why not:

• read some books about hedgehogs
• research some facts and record one inside the fold
• line them up to count and play some number games (a group of hedgehogs is called an array)

Here you can find more ideas for learning with hedgehogs, including a free action rhyme for math!

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Craft for Kids

Beep Beep! Fast Math Ideas

Do you have the Beep Beep coloring page from our Premium Coloring Club? before you let your students paint or color the fun little cars, play a few minimal-prep math games! 

Place Value

• 2 players
• assign a row of 3 cars to each player (top and bottom of page)
• the first car is a space to keep winning tokens
• the next 2 cars are a place value mat - one car for the ten, the other car for the ones
• students take turns to roll a die and build a number
• e.g. Player 1 rolls a 1, decides on either one ten or one one
• Player 2 rolls and has his first turn
• After each rolling twice, 2 numbers have been created - in the example below, 13 and 24
• the 2 numbers are compared and the largest number wins - here player 2 can put a blue counter in his first car
• the first player to have 3 counters in their first car is the winner

Below the player has rolled 4 and has chosen to place down 4 ones. 

Comparing 2 and 3 digit Numbers

• 2 players
• assign a row of 3 cars to each player and 3 dice of the same color
• students each roll their dice and build a number, deciding which dice to place in each car
• e.g. in the example below, the top player has made 331, the bottom player 426
• 426 wins as it is the largest number when compared with the other and this student wins a token from the middle rows of cars
• the first student to score 3 tokens may be declared the winner

Play by making 2 digit numbers too!

Skip Counting by 2

• individual play
• roll an eight sided dice and make groups of 2 to skip count
• in the example below, the student rolled a 3, so places 2 counters in 3 cars (covering the eyes if supported is needed)
• talk to your learners about repeated addition, equal groups and skip counting to make it faster to find the total

Counting by 2 Craft

To further help your students understand repeated addition for multiplication (and skip counting) they can make a Beep Beep Car!

The math craft has a fold-down interactive component which helps students get a genuine feel for how numbers grow in size by a consistent repetition of an equal set. 

It's available in our store and comes with a bonus digital warm up to present to your students on the electronic board! 

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Coloring Page, math craft, skip counting

Making 20 - Climb the Apple Tree

Here is a hands-on playful addition game for making 20. Students will explore different combinations as they decide on a number to add next. Repeated plays will let students develop strategies for planning their next number and working more fluently with various combinations. 

Climb the Apple Tree

• play in pairs
• each player has a different color dice (I used foam jumbo dice from KMart, they're great)
• let one student start building the ladder to climb the apple tree by placing their dice down to reveal a number of their choice (in the photo below the first player chose 2)
• the other player chooses a number and adds it to the ladder, both students find the new total (now 2+5=7)
• play returns to the first player who again selects a number and the new total is calculated (2+5+4=11)
• play continues until a player can reach an exact 20 - they may be declared the winner
• play as many times as possible to build fluency and allow for strategies to be developed and internalized

The apple tree painting featured here is optional but may be a nice engagement tool for your learners. 

You can find the steps for an apple tree drawing in the Coloring Club.

Ask students to record the numbers that make 20 in their math journal or on a whiteboard to share with the class.



After playing, extend this learning:

Fast Tower

• play again with individual students, set a timer and have them build a tower of 20 as fast as they can

Visualization

• tell a math story and ask your students to picture it in their mind, calculating the apples on the tree as they listen: Today in the park I saw an apple tree. It was enormous and quite leafy. I counted the red apples on the tree, there were 5. There were 3 apples on the ground and 4 in a basket someone had picked. How many apples did I see?

Action Rhyme

• learn a fun counting action rhyme

Find more ideas, games and resources for addition on our website page!

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Addition

Cutting Practice Pages with Hedgehog

If your students need more fine motor fun - especially cutting practice, I have some cute hedgehogs who need help with a spike trim! 

On each of the 12 pages your students will refine their scissor skills by cutting straight, zig zag and wavy lines from edge to middle in varying lengths. 

Cutting practice requires (and can help develop) wrist strength - which will support ongoing writing stamina! These pages can help, along with other activities like:

• cutting scrap cardboard (get students to bring to school empty cereal boxes etc)
• painting with big thick brushes - you could have them paint along the hedgehog spikes before they cut
• twisting craft / crepe paper
• crayon rubbing / texture plates (find on Amazon or educational supply stores)
• playing in a home corner or play center - plaiting dolls hair, typing on a toy keyboard, racing toys that have a wind up wheel, twisting lids on and off, 
• creative construction activities - pipe cleaners, craft sticks, arranging with pattern blocks

If your students are new to cutting practice - our alphabet set is a great place to start!



Here are a few ideas to get even more skills developed with a hedgehog page!

• challenge students with more refined skills to cut an additional line in between the lines

• provide crayons and have students draw lots of downstrokes for handwriting practice (extra spikes)

• once cut, have students roll each flap around a pencil or marker

Find the hedgehog pages over in our store and more fun activities on the website page!

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fine motor, scissor skills

An Array of Hedgehogs

3 teachers who connect with me on Instagram made mention or requested something for hedgehogs recently so I have made a few pages and resources for them and their students - I hope you like them too!

Did you know that a group of hedgehogs is called an array? That is just perfect for helping your little learners see numbers in equal rows and columns. If you've been playing Hedgehogs are Hiding you can engage your students by telling them that the hedgehogs are now brave and ready to come out into the classroom to get faster with counting! Putting things in lines (repeated addition) can make it faster for us to count! 3, 3, 3 and 3 makes 4 equal groups of 3, which makes 12!

I've written an action rhyme for you to further engage your students - and integrate reading, language, action and classroom management. 

Your students can roll dice after they learn it to make an array.

• roll 2 dice
• use one for the number of rows
• use one for the number of columns
• make an array
• find the total
• encourage students to label the array - verbally or with a drawing in their math journal or written number sentence - e.g. 3 rows of 2 make 6 altogether. 

If you've been using pattern blocks in other math activities recently - use those to make an array. Tell your students the green triangles are hedgehogs. 

Find this action rhyme over in our TpT store!

You may also like:

• more action rhymes
• more language and listening games
• more array activities
• more hedgehog activities

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Arrays, Finger Play, Multiplication

Hedgehogs are Hiding

I have loved bringing you extra ways to make numbers more fun, engaging and playful over the last few weeks! Here are 3 minimal-prep games to play in your classroom when you have a few spare minutes. They support

• number
• counting
• listening

Hedgehogs are Hiding - A Counting and Listening Game

Tell your students 

• the hedgehogs are hiding - they are a little shy
• they are just itching to learn everything in class this year so are listening in, trying to HEAR everything
• let's help them by showing them how well we count

Now do some class counting - whatever suits your class - forward, backward, skip, on/off the decade etc). After some counting, tell your class:

• let's play a trick on the hedgehogs and see how well they hear, and they can join in too

Ask them to listen to your counting and find the mistake. Say: 

• when you hear me make a mistake, but your hands in the air and twinkle your fingers like hedgehogs spikes

Say some number sequences with an error (adjust to your class level) - e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10. Students listen and signal when they hear an error in the sequence/order. If you're counting within the range 0-10 remind yoru students that they can monitor your counting by looking at the numbers you have on display in the classroom.

Hedgehog is Hiding

To extend on the first game,  integrate some symbols now (numbers) - use some flashcards and a printable hedgehog.

• scatter some number cards or order them into a number line
• hide a hedgehog behind one number
• tell students some clues about the number - e.g. hedgehog is hiding behind the number that is one more than 5
• let some students signal when they think they have guessed the number - and they can check their guess by flipping the number to find hedgehog hiding
• this child can now hide the hedgehog and give clues

Hedgehogs are Counting

Students will deepen their understanding of numbers by listening to the sounds of counting. They will also compose hexagons.

A hexagon can be composed from pattern blocks of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 shapes. Show these to your students. We have a free coloring page to help you! 

  
Tell your students:

• the hedgehogs are still hiding in the classroom and they have been listening and learning to count with you
• the hedgehogs are shaped like hexagons
• the hedgehogs are going to make some sounds, listen and count
• close your eyes

Now, clap some numbers between 1 and 6 and have the students call out the number to you. For example, if you clap twice, it will signify that the hedgehog made from 2 blocks has counted and the children say ‘two’.

Variations:

• in small groups use dice and the free coloring club page
• play a listening game and say a word pattern - e.g. yellow, red-red, or blue-green-blue-green

Classroom Coloring Pages

Your students may also like to imagine their classroom full of friendly little hedgehogs who are so excited to hear them learn this year! They will be listening in, following along and learning too! You can refer back to them as you play your listening games, as you encourage attentive focus from your whole class (shhhh the hedgies are waiting for you!) and as you learn your letter sounds.

I have a coloring page over in the club to help them visualize it:

Find more minimal-prep language and listening games HERE

Thanks so much for stopping by the blog, I hope you have a great Friday!

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counting, Talking and Listening

Hexagons with Hedgehogs

Have fun with shapes using our special edition Make & Match Cards with Hexagon Hedgie!

They will arrange, flip, slide and rotate pattern block shapes to create the arrangements shown on each of these cards

This activity encourages an integration of geometry, math talk and growing patterns. Students will make their picture and then be encouraged to talk and grow their design.

• fast prep - just print the cards and team with pattern blocks
• clear and engaging design for students
• learn essential early math skills with hands-on play

Included in the resource is a page for students to trace and color - or paint! 

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2D Shapes, Kindergarten, pattern blocks

10 Things to do with Number Cards

Liven up your math moments, warm ups, transitions and brain breaks with fast prep number and counting activities. Grab your number cards and a few classroom staples and you're set! Here are 10 hands-on activities you can implement in seconds with just a set of cards. 

Use:

• index cards
• number flashcards
• sets of number cards from a math center or game
• our new number tile cards

10 Ways to Use Number Cards

1. Writing Cards - use with a dry erase markers and students trace or track the numeral
2. Ordering - let students order them in different ways (forward, backward, vertical, different starting positions)
3. Missing Numbers - line some cards up, flip some and ask students which ones are missing
4. Memory - print 2 sets and place face down, flip 2 to find a match
5. Following Directions - place some cards down and ask students to follow your instructions - e.g. find 4, put 3 bears on number 6, find the number that comes after 7.
6. Listen - clap a number and ask students to find the matching card
7. Make a number line for display or an addition activity
8. Difference - using the number line, put a sticky note on 2 numbers and ask students to tell you the difference, tell addition stories and hop on the number line
9. Clues - tell clues and have students find and take the answer - e.g. I'm thinking of a number that is 2 more than 8.
10. Create number patterns - make skip counting patterns - e.g count by 2s

If you love fun number and counting ideas, you'll enjoy my Newsletter Super Fan email! Sign up and I'll send you some!

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Kindergarten, Number Games

Pattern Block Activity Cards

If you're looking for fun activities to make math hands-on and engaging with the capacity to build independence within your students - these pattern block cards will help!

Team them with standard 2D shape blocks and encourage students to arrange, flip, slide and rotate to re-create the arrangements.

I've included 108 different cards - use all of them or a smaller selection.



Let students freely play or use the instructions for a more structured  activity that integrates geometry and number. 

Students will count the pattern blocks in their first picture and find a second card that show the same number of individual blocks. This opens an opportunity for you to discuss doubles too.



Ket features of our printable activity include:

• fast prep - just print the cards and team with pattern blocks
• clear and engaging design for students
• teaching essential early math skills with hands-on play
• cards that show arrangements of 2-10 shapes

You can differentiate to use this activity with any number range - just add your own dice or number spinner.



Find it ready to print today, over in the store, as well as a recently listed '5 block' version, perfect for pre-K and early Kindergarten. 

• original set (numbers 2-10)
• set with patterns of 5

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2D Shapes, Math Center

Racing Numbers

I've created a speedy numbers page for your learners and am sharing it with you from the free library of the Pond Coloring Club! Here are a few ways to use it before your children get the crayons, pencils or paint out to decorate! 

Numeral Formation

• have students track inside (similar to tracing) the number shape to practice numeral formation

Subtraction 

• roll a 20 sided dice and a 10 sided dice, students take the smaller number from the larger number and color the answer

Warm Up Math Game for fast Numeral Identification

• Print a page at 60% and create a speedy stick pointer. 
• Play a warm up game, pointing to numbers quickly, in random order.
• Students say the number you're pointing to!

Variations:

• students say the next number
• students say the number before
• students double the number
• encourage students to say a rhyme as they form the number to help remember the stroke order
• after, they can color the page

Numeral Identification

• roll a 10 sided dice, color the matching numeral

We hope you're students have fun with this page and if you're not yet a member of the club, we'd love to have you with us!

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numbers to ten

Shape Plate - Addition and Subtraction Stories

We have a new Draw More page for your students and children. They will draw what's on their plate! It's perfect for an art lesson, to integrate with counting stories in early math or in a farm-to-plate social studies or science unit!

They can draw from their personal experience, imagination and ideas!

Let's Eat by Ana Zamorano is a lovely high quality picture book to read to your students as an introduction to math concepts that can be explored during meal times and to get students thinking about what's on their plate. 

Topics you could explore after reading include:

• number words: seven, two, thousand, once, o'clock
• size: smallest, biggest
• position: between, left/right (knife/fork)
• days of the week
• counting: days of the week, clapping, counting tomatoes from the vine, 
• one more/one less (missing from the table, baby arrived)
• 1:1 correspondence: plates to match places, to match chairs
• counting by 2 (cutlery)
• counting by 3 (cutlery + plate)

Perhaps you have a play corner where students could role play some of the things they have talked about and set a little table.

As well as drawing on their activity page, your students can explore some math concepts as you tell little stories. They will practice attentive listening as well. 

Shapes on the Plate

• provide shape blocks
• tell some stories, students act them out
• e.g. Tonight I am having shapes for dinner. I have 2 shapes with 3 sides a blue shape and a square. How many shapes do I have on my plate? First I will eat the square. How many shapes do I have left?

Students slides shape on and off to model simple addition and subtraction.

You could also use the pea printables from our Math Pack!



Incorporate some trading for place value with a story that uses ones and tens. As ten ones are reached, students can trade for a ten. 

For example: Tonight I am having 3 peas, 4 carrots and 3 potatoes on my plate. As students place the one blocks down, they count-on (e.g. three, 4, 5, 6, 7 as the carrots go down) and trade for a ten. Continue adding food, perhaps encouraging members of the small group to suggest what next goes on the plate. After the game they can draw a math picture and label their sets of food!

Find this drawing activity page over at TpT and have fun with numbers today!

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Addition, Books, Drawing, Subtraction