My second graders started a new math unit this year. You may have heard of it, Math in Focus. It is pushing my little mathematicians to the max. Knowing that it was more difficult curriculum I wondered what was going to happen to my number sense kids. You know, the kids that struggle to subtract 5 from 8. I mean, I am asking them in chapter 10 to do mental math with 3 digit numbers. This small group of kids are so lost and just feel unsuccessful. I wanted them to have a group where they can practice their level skills in a fun way.
Play Dough is such a fun kinesthetic tool that teachers can use on a day to day basis. This download that I made has three fun game mats and fact cards to go with each activity. The first one (and my fav) is called Subtraction Smash. The students create a bunch of small balls with the play dough and then pull subtraction facts from the deck that comes with it. If they pull 8 - 5 = they would place 8 balls on their ten frames and use their thumb to smash 5. The second is a number bond mat. Last is an array dash. They race their partner to create arrays with their balls. For this game I pre-make the small balls of play dough and put them back into the containers. That way they are ready to go when that group is called up.