Number Sense Idea and a Back-to-School treat!

If you haven't been grocery shopping lately you might have missed these:

Both Nestle and Pilsbury have Ready to Bake "Back To School" sugar cookies! My kids love these and I love that I don't have to dirty up the kitchen to make them lol. The Nestle cookies have more pictures (we did a quick sorting/patterning lesson with my youngest with these cookies) but the Pilsbury cookies have 2 Box Tops! I had to get a pack of each lol.

I also went into school today - I am almost finished! My spray paint ran out 1/2 way through painting a table, and I still have to find a place for a few things, but I managed to get up my bulletin boards (inlcuding the hallway) and paint my magnetic wall. I wasn't going to paint it oringinally, but another teacher wandered in and wondered aloud what that metal thing in the back of the room was. When I explained it was my magnet wall he said "You know you can paint over that and it's still magnetic." I took that as a hint lol! Here's the before, I'll post the after on Monday:

Yeah, he was right, it really did need to be painted!

While I was unpacking I came across some number sense rings I made with my kinders last year and I thought I'd share. I got this idea at a Singapore Math training, but Lakeshore Learning also has a ready-made set. I prefer making my own because it's a). cheaper and b). you learn a LOT about your kinders' abilities while doing this. I store the class set in 2 Ziploc bags and just note on the outside which color goes with which number.

They're so fun and colorful, the kids loved them!

When you make the class set with your kiddos you can tell who has trouble with one-to-one correspondence and who has trouble with fine motor skills. Most of my kinders don't attend pre-k, so a lot of them had trouble with doing the higher number rings. I make mine whole group with the children in a circle around the carpet and me in the middle. This way I can control materials while still noting who is having trouble and who is a whiz at it! I place small piles of  beads around the circle so the children can share. They have to count out the number of beads for the ring we are working on. Then they thread the beads onto a pipe cleaner and twist the ends together. As each child finishes I quickly check for accuracy and make sure the ends are secure.

So, what do you do with them? Obviously they are good for counting and one-to-one correspondence. Before they memorize which color goes with which number you can have them work with these in small groups - counting the beads on each ring and ordering them from least to most. You can also use them for other number sense activities. For example. if you take a ring with 7 beads, you can arrange the beads to show the different number bonds (3+4, 2+5, 1+6 and 0+7). You can also pair up the beads to show that 7 is an odd number since the last bead does not have a partner. For subtraction problems you can take a ring and have the children solve for taking 2 away etc. So not only are these great for one-to-one correspondence practice, you can use them throughout the year as you progress into odd/even, more than/less than and addition/subtraction.

Here's the materials for a class set:
10 pipe cleaners per child.
10 different colors of pony beads. To figure out how many of each color you'll need, just times the number of the ring with how many students you have. For example, in a class of 18 you'll need 180 beads for the #10 rings, 162 beads for the #9's and 144 beads for the #8's etc. It is much easier to figure this out at home rather than in the aisle of Hobby Lobby!

If you haven't yet entered my giveaway for $20 woth of Sunbasilgarden handmade soaps please click here  :)