Using Dice in the Kindergarten Classroom

          Read to the bottom to find the FREE              Roll & Cover Game for 4th of July!

I've been thinking a lot about dice lately. When I thought I was going to teach 1st grade, I made a lot of roll & cover addition & subtraction games - one for virtually every theme I teach. Here are a few of my latest:

 "Where the Wild Things Are" to go with my new classroom theme.

Groovy Cat to go along with my Eric Litwin author study.

Ocean Friends to go along with my Commotion in the Ocean theme.

For my addition games, the numbers go up to 12. I can either give my kiddos two dice with the pips instead of numbers so they can practice counting the pips and then identify the corresponding number:

Or I can give them a 12 sided dice like the ones that come in a set and have them just practice number matching:

They even have those polyhedrals in foam for quiet play :)

The polyhedral dice have 4, 8,10,12, and 20 sided dice in each set.  I can think of a lot of fun games you could play with dice (counting cubes to be politically correct lol) even aside form Roll & Cover! In order to store them all easily, I got one of those plastic compartmentalized boxes at Hobby Lobby.

 Now I just have to get my kids to sort my dice for me :)

And of course, Roll and Cover games are just the tip of the iceberg for using dice as a math manipulative! 

This Math Centers pack has 10 easy center activities using dice or playing cards!

Since the 4th of July is coming up, I made an abbreviated Roll & Cover game for the occasion. I figured it would be useful for anyone teaching summer school or year-round school (shudder!). My kids also enjoy playing these - even though it's a bit easy for my two oldest lol, still it's a good way to get them to sit down and play quietly with their younger siblings! I plan to just throw the game boards in by bag along with a set of dice and then we have an easy take-along game for barbecues/picnics etc to help keep the kids occupied while waiting on food or fireworks! It's up for free in my TPT store if you'd like to grab it :)

It's my birthday!

In honor of my birthday, I'm giving away a free printable graph and dice set for a 4th of July or Fireworks theme! Just go to my TPT store to grab it!

4th of July Fun

It's a long weekend! I know, I have the summer off so it's not a big deal for me, but my husband is in the Army so he gets a 4 day weekend which is great! Today we hit the pool and went grocery shopping (so much easier when there's another adult to help!) As we were cruising the aisles, I found a bag of red, white and blue "StarMallows" for 4th of July. I grabbed them on impulse and decided to make a sorting mat and graph for my 2 younger kiddos. Click here to grab it for yourself!
We're having friends over on Monday for a 4th of July BBQ. There's a burn ban in our county so there won't be any fireworks. Instead, I'm going to have the kids make these cute salt and watercolor fireworks. To throw a little bit of science in the works, we're also trying these illusion disks featuring the American flag from Steve Spangler's website.