Math Activities in a Flash! {Freebie}

Hello Primary Powers Friends!

 It's Jeannine from Creative Lesson Cafe! 

I'm here today to share a little a life-saver of a math activity I always have ready to go to fill up those extra few minutes we might have or to mix things up a bit up when my kiddos get ants in their pants! 

I have a little FREEBIE to share with you to help you get something like this ready to go in your room too!

 All you will need are some colorful 0-10 cards.

What can you do with a card set of numbers 0-10?

 Probably more than you can possibly imagine for good, simple math fun! They can be used for addition, subtraction, comparing numbers, even/odd practice, double-digit addition and subtraction, multiplication, place value and more! The kiddos prefer this over a boring practice worksheet any day! I assign the task and the students write in spiral notebooks. There is a lot of value in having the students set up and record their own problems!

I printed and laminated a class set of the number cards above to use for a variety of math activities and partner games. They are the perfect size to store in little library pockets like these from Creative Teaching Press.

It was a little bit of work to cut them all out, so I rounded up some parent volunteers to help. Trust me, it is worth the time spent to have sets to use for years to come.

 Why not just use a deck of cards?

 I like these better than a deck of playing cards because we don't have as many face cards to take out. Besides, in math, sometimes you just need a ZERO! We teach our students that zero is something, not nothing. A zero card plays an important role.

When students manipulate numbers to set up their own problems, we often find mistakes to learn from and have some great number talks!

For the task shown above, the students were asked to turn over four cards and create a double-digit subtraction problem. It's one thing to solve a problem on a worksheet, but making up your own problem involves some different thinking skills. One student had shown 80-93. They decided to flip over some other cards to help them with their regrouping algorithm. You can see they needed to rethink their equation!

 Sound like fun? 

If you want to try these math activities too, you can download this FREEBIE set from my dropbox for your kiddos to use by clicking on the image below! 

I'm sure your class will love mixing up math practice with their own special cards! The file also includes a list of suggestions for some easy peasy activities to use in the classroom. If you want to know more, you can read an older blog post {here} to see more ideas for cards in action!

What are your favorite worksheet-free math activities?

Leave a comment below and tell us all about them! 

Have a fantastic finish to your February!