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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
These fun winter animals clip cards will help your student develop their addition facts to 10 all winter long.
There’s a lot of fun to be had when winter rolls around in your kindergarten classroom. The brisk weather outside means you get to go on snowy explorations outside, and there’s a lot of winter animals to talk about in your classroom. It’s also worth mentioning that taking arctic animals as your theme for December is a great way to equalize the holiday season for students who don’t celebrate Christmas; everyone can get on board with cuddly penguins or cute polar bears everywhere!
Introducing Solving Equations To Your Students
While the early months of kindergarten math focus on number recognition, digit formation and being able to count a set of objects accurately, winter is the perfect time to introduce your students to addition sums. It will be essential for their ongoing mathematical development for them to understand that the equals sign doesn’t mean “and the answer is”, but rather indicates that both equations on either side of it have an equal value. This will help your students gain flexibility with addition sums that work in both directions (e.g. 2 + 2 = 4 and 4 = 2 + 2), as well as getting them ready for the comparative operations of greater than and less than.
Preparing Arctic Addition Facts to 10
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Extension Activities For Solving Equations
These arctic animal clip cards are an easy way for students to practice their addition facts to 10. Students simply analyze the equation next to the polar bears and then use a clothes peg or a dry erase marker to indicate if it’s right or wrong. As they begin to master this skill, try some of these addition sums extension tasks:
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Fix the answer – a great quick finisher task is have your students gather all the cards with the wrong answer and use a dry erase marker (or a separate piece of paper) to fix the answer so it makes (e.g. instead of 5 + 1 = 7, they would correct it to 5 + 1 = 6).
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Fix the addition sum – in a twist on the above activity, you can ask your students to find two ways to fix the addition sum by only changing one digit so that it matches the single digit on the other side of the equals side (e.g. instead of 5 + 1 = 7, they should generate 6 + 1 = 7 and 5 + 2 =7).
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Create their own cards – finally, as students begin to master their addition facts to 10 with these clip cards, you can have them create their own winter animals cards for their friends. Remind them to mix it up so some of their cards have the right answer and some have the wrong answer.
This game is also available as digital Boom Cards which can be used with Seesaw, Google Classroom and other distance learning platforms. Grab these Internet task cards here.
Like this? Then you’ll love my 10 Snow Themed Literacy and Math Centers. These easy-prep games will get your students working on letters, phonics, numbers and more!
Games included:
1) Snowflake Pick and Cover Letters – Kids will pick letter cards and match them with the letters on the playing mat until all letters have been identified.
2) Snowflake Sight Words Bingo – 8 different bingo cards provided for use in small groups. 40 Pre-primer sight words are included.
3) Snowball Letters and Numbers Sorting – Sort the snowballs according to upper and lowercase or letters vs numbers.
4) Snowflake Vowel Sound Sorting – Print out the sorting mat and place the picture cards in the correct columns based on their vowel sounds.
5) Snowflake Write the Room Alphabet – Hunt around the room for a letter card and match the pictures on the recording sheet to complete the game.
6) Snowman Count and Write Numbers – Kids will practice writing number words 1-10. There are 2 versions included – with numbers and with ten frames.
7) Snowflake Counting Clip Cards – Develop fine motor skills and math skills in this 1-20 counting game.
8) Winter Numbers Memory Match – Flip 2 cards over at a time to find matching number pairs until all the numbers have been matched up.
9) Snowman Ten Frame Mats – Adorable counting mats with ten frames for one to one correspondence and counting practice. You can use this with cotton wool ‘snow’, pompoms, buttons, etc.
10) Snowflake Visual Discrimination Cards- Find the 2 matching snowflakes from a group of 6. There are 16 cards provided.
Check it out for more ready-to-go fun!
Fun Books For Winter:
Other Printables for Your Winter Lesson Plan:
1) Penguin Sight Words Write the Room – Kids will love this printable penguin theme pre-primer sight words write the room activity! It’s perfect for a winter literacy center in kindergarten and even first grade.
2) Penguin and Fish Letter Matching– Printable penguin and fish themed game to pair up upper and lowercase letters.
3) Counting to 20 with Ice Skates – Kindergarten and 1st-grade students will work on counting to 20 and one to one correspondence in this free ice skating activity. Use this as a fun winter math center in your classroom or as a hands-on printable twenty frame game for your homeschool.
4) Snowman Ten Frame Mats – Students in preschool to 1st grade will practice counting, making 10, one to one correspondence, subitizing and writing numbers with these snowman ten frame mats. Use this printable as a fun winter math center in your classroom or as a hands-on addition activity for your homeschooling kids.
5) Winter Printable Worksheets Pack – Your kids will love this 50-page winter packet full of fun activities to help them practice literacy, math and fine motor skills. Preschool and kindergarten students will cut, color, count and much more. This activity pack is perfect for indoor leaning time during the cold winter months.
6) Winter Freeze Number Puzzle Strips – 2 printable winter theme puzzles to practice number order from 1 to 20.
7) Snowball Sorting – Sort out numbers from letters or uppercase letters from lowercase letters in this winter-themed activity.
Educational Tools For Your Classroom:
Browse My Most Popular Math Printables:
1) Parking Cars Tracing Lines – More than 10 different tracing line patterns to choose from, all of which help with pencil control.
2) Scarecrow Arrange By Size – 3 different scarecrow-themed image sets that they will arrange from smallest to biggest.
3) Bumblebee Addition Game – Solve the sum and help the bee land on the correct flower!
4) Farm Shapes Mats – Use playdough, pompoms, stickers etc to learn 2D shapes.
5) Popsicle Stick Number Formation – Kids will love forming the numbers 1 to 10 when ice cream and popsicles are involved!
6) Valentines Printable Worksheets Pack – 50 pages of mixed literacy and math activities.
7) Zoo Animals Number Puzzle Strips – Complete these cute puzzles and learn the numbers 1 to 20.
8) Counting Colorful Bugs – This printable book will help kids count to 10 while also learning about color words.
9) Humpty Dumpty Numbers – In this printable game, your students will practice number recognition using 1 dice or simple addition when using 2 dice.
10) Build A Number Santa – Match the number to the correct number word, tally mark and domino to form a Santa Claus
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