Confession: I'm a Dollar Tree addict. There, I admit it. I have a problem.
You see, I stroll around that amazing store and fill my cart up with items that my brain says would be great in my classroom.
Seriously, as soon as I walk into TDT I just want to throw my hands in the air and shout "BUY ALL THE THINGS!"
And then all of those items end up in my garage waiting for my brain to come up with a classroom use. Sometimes it happens...and other times, well, let's just say we've added major shelving units in the garage for my teaching stuff.
But...sometimes I see something and say "OMG! I can do...blah blah...with those." And I buy them. But not just the number I need. No sir. I buy a few extras. Just in case. I mean, what if they don't have them ever again?!
I have a bunch of these flower trays in my classroom (and garage....#realtalk) and I've used them for painting trays. Works great.
I mean for a dollar...you might as well buy 20. Or 30. Or more.
As soon as I these fun colors, I knew exactly what I was going to do.
Make an addition game. And make it flowery because these trays look like flowers!
So here's what I did:
I made number using my Silhouette Cameo machine! BUt don't worry. If you don't have one of those, you can totally use a Sharpie or print numbers on clear mailing labels and stick those to the tray!
It works perfectly for adding to 10.
Having two trays makes differentiation easy too.
After the trays were prepared I made some flowery addition cards and a recording sheet.
And BAM! Flower Power Addition!
Put the cards in the middle of the flower.
Students choose a card.
Solve the equation.
Place the card in the flower petal for the correct answer.
Write the equation and answer on the recording sheet!
BAM!
Cheap. Easy. Engaging. Easy to differentiate.
And this same concept could be used for soooo many skills:
subtraction
counting
vowels
blends
sounds
and more...
And I have now successfully used .000000000001% of my Dollar Tree purchases!
GO ME!
Snag your freebie by clicking on the picture!
