New games are always fun to play, especially when they are a part of our new unit on geometry. This game had students working together to be the first team to complete two shapes on their game board. Every team had a circle divided into fourths, as well as an irregular shape to fill with other pieces. Students had to make decisions about how to obtain new shape pieces for their section and which ones to discard after each turn.
We have started double digit subtraction this week with regrouping (borrowing), and to go along with our new focus will be doing some new menu math games for independent work time. Some of these games will reinforce double digit addition, and others will extend our current unit. I've noticed over the years that the children sometimes confuse the two processes, and "forget" which operation they are working on. Thus, the reason for the overlap on games. Any of the past menu math games are still available to play after journal writing in the morning or when they are finished with centers. I know there are a couple of old favorites they love.
Students learned a new Menu Math game this week to help them practice their place value skills. The game, Cover a Flat, is played like Race for a Dollar, and consists of students using dice and trading their small pieces (cubes) into a rod (10 cubes), and ultimately into a flat (10 rods).
