Flying Feathers

I am completely obsessed with designing more snowball games because my students absolutely LOVE my original snowball games. Not only do my kiddos beg to play, they are completely engaged. My students work hard to earn snowball fight time, usually about 1-2 times a week. Here is the thing I love, they are begging to do math! Since our fourth grade is departmentalized, it is sometimes possible for me to squeeze in quick game at the end of class. Recently, I have had students write their answers on post-it note exit slips. Click here to checkout my whole collection of snowball games.

I wanted to create a seasonal version of my snowball fight, so I created Place Value: Flying Feathers. I have created 100 feather pages which require students to either read or write numbers between 1,000 and 1,000,000 (4.NBT.2). In this game, feather will fly.

I also created 2^nd Grade Place Value: Snowball Fight (2.NBT.3). This game contains 60 snowballs featuring numerals between 1-500. The numbers are represented in word form, expanded form and picture form.

Subtraction Strategies

For the last several weeks, my class has been solving addition problems using a variety of methods, including mental math. I developed an addition graphic organizer which we use to record the strategies shared by my kiddos. At the beginning of the year, many students described solving 345 + 30 by adding the “three to four.” Now, my little mathematicians tell me, “I know thirty plus forty is seventy or I know three tens plus four tens is seven tens.” We are now working on both addition and subtraction strategies. I created a subtraction graphic organizer for my students to keep in their math journals as a reference. My kiddos like completing the graphic organizer with a partner. I put the graphic organizers in clear report covers so my students may write on them with fine tip dry erase makers. Click here to download your FREE addition and subtraction graphic organizers!

Place Value Foldables

Updated 2/26/15

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Place-Value-Foldables-913732

My class has been examining number patterns for several weeks. Because many of my students incorrectly thought the place after thousands is millions, I wanted my students to notice patterns among place value periods. To help my students really see the pattern, I pushed the place value out into the quadrillions. I displayed my I Can Read Big, Big, Big Numbers Foldable on my interactive whiteboard, and then my little mathematicians practiced saying the large numbers I wrote on the board. They had a BLAST reading the big numbers. My kiddos noticed that each period had a ten and a hundred. Afterward, students placed a copy of the foldable in their journals as a reference. Click here to check out my Place Value Foldables!

We used this foldable to discuss patterns moving from one place to another. For example, it takes 10 tens to make one hundred and it takes 100 tens to make one thousand.

Folding down one zero and revealing the number underneath, helped my kiddos identify the value of each digit. The digit 8 pictured above has a value of 800.