Rake it Up with Regrouping!

Hey gang!  Like the rest of you, I'm super excited that fall is here!  Two of my favorite things about fall: no more dripping sweat during recess duty (can I get an AMEN!?) and cardigans.  Oh, how I love a good cardigan!  One of my friends asked to borrow a pink cardigan and I brought her 12 different pink cardis.  Obsessed?  Perhaps.

Fall also brings beautiful leaves...which was the inspiration behind this fun freebie I'm about to share with you.  I'm getting ready to introduce regrouping to my second graders and I've been trying to come up with some fun games.  Here's what I came up with:

This includes directions and number leaf cards.  Students draw 4-6 leaves (depending on whether they're creating a two or three digit problem) and create an addition problem with the numbers they draw.  Their partner will help them check their work with a calculator.  If they get it right, they keep their leaf cards.  The partner with the biggest leaf pile at the end of the game is the winner!  Click here to download your own copy!

I'll leave you with a little funny:
{a freebie AND a funny?  Man, you guys are lucky!}
I was reviewing with my kiddos before a test the other day and we were going over all the different addition strategies we had learned.  I was writing them on the board and we were having this great discussion.  I called on one of my friends and asked him what strategy he liked to use... "God."

"Oh, ok!  Yes, I guess we can use God." I started to call on another student, but this particular friend is a wee bit persistent...

"But Ms. Preppy, you can call on God in times of stressness," he explained.

"Yes, you can absolutely call on God in times of 'stressness'."  I tried moving on again...

"Um, aren't you going to write that down?" he asked, kind of hurt that I didn't give his strategy a spot on our chart.

So I wrote it down.  I now have a poster that has addition strategies such as counting on, using a number line, using your fingers, and God.  Because you can call on Him in times of "stressness".  And apparently math is crazy stressful for first graders.