Have You Seen These Yet? GREAT for Common Core

Counting & Cardinality:

This kit came with laminated placemats, paper plates, felt numbered ants, plastic ants,
1 foam die, and a cute cloth bag to hold everything. 
Click the image to see this kit and similar kits.

Before I show the kids the ten frames, before we learn about what each numeral looks like, we stet out by counting.  Katie & Co. has so many cute kits that you can use for this. 

Here is more info about this great company.

How We Played:

Give each child ten ants (or any other counters you may have on hand) and place them in a small container.  

Then give them a paper plate where they can gather their ant while they play.  

Each child takes a turn rolling the die.  (I loved the foam die this kit came with because it's so quiet.)  The child who rolled the die gets to put that many ants on their plate.  

Each child takes a turn rolling the die and placing ants on their plate.  

I added ant cards which each child got after they played the game.
I just cut up a bulletin board border that had ants on a red and white background.

Tip - I had the children slide the ants they earned from their first turn to one side of their plate so they can count out the ants they got from their second turn and they didn't confuse them with the ants that were already on their plate.  Once they were done counting out the second set, they were able to mix all of their ants together.

He rolled a four so he is counting out four more ants to place on his plate.

We played up to to ten, but you had to get just ten without going over, so if you already had eight ants on your plate, you could only roll a one or a two to continue placing ants on your plate.  If you rolled a three or higher, you had to skip that turn.

Added Benefits:

This game really got kids thinking about things like, "How many more do I need to get to ten?"  It encouraged oral language, higher level thinking skills, and social skills.

Extending For Advanced Students:

This card shows even more ways to use this game.

When we were done, I let the more advanced students gather the felt ants that came with the kit and place them in a line in number order on the carpet.  The other students got to watch help too. 

Sometimes I gave each student 2 or 3 ants and allowed them to all work together to create the number line.  They used the giant number line on our wall to help with this if needed.  

We also got to learn the little poem that came with this game.  You can also play this game by singing this song:

I hope you liked this activity.

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Thank you for reading.

See you all tomorrow.

Palma