What's My Value?- Math Story & Freebie

I love teaching math! It is a challenge and I love making math more interactive for my students. I can remember the days of looking at a textbook and just doing assigned problems- which I liked, but most don't. Nerd confession: There are some days I wish I could still be given a math assignment like this. I am probably one of the few that thinks this.

Math is a much bigger challenge this year for three reasons:
-teaching two grade levels at once (which when realizing my students' abilities it is more like four grade levels)
-my students are low
-not sure what curriculum to use...yes I teach the Common Core but limited resources

So the curriculum part has been cleared up a little and I am now using Math- U- See. Love it! It is completely hands-on and visual. My students are engaged and mastering the lessons faster than I anticipated.

We have gotten place value down. Hooray! I kept creating different centers and games for my different math groups and finally put them together in this sweet little packet for you...that is if you would like it. Click on the picture to get a closer peek.

It is filled with a week of centers for students in third and fourth grade. It is easy to differentiate as there are two versions for almost every activity.

The highlights according to my students:

Trash or Treasure

Students had to learn a rule to decide if numbers followed the rule. Number was trash if didn't and treasure if it did. Students asked to play this over and over again!

 Four Corners Game (which is actually six corners)

We played Four Corners the first day of school and students have been asking to play it ever since. So I turned it into a math game. There are four cards for each number. Each card is a different way to represent the number. Each number gets a certain location in the room. Then students get their own card and have to figure out where they belong. Once again I am hearing from students "When can we play that again?"

Throw A Number

I put my ice cube trays to good use. Each ice cube spot became a number so students had to throw a number. They could make a two-digit number all the way to a seven-digit number but then they had to draw what their number was. Since we are using Math-U-See the seven-digit number drawings we based on the houses we used in that program. 

And for sticking with my long math post I have this freebie for you- two activities from my packet. 

Click on the picture to get your copy.