Wanna know how to get your kids engaged in any lesson?
FOOD!!! Seriously. They will work for A SKITTLE. One. Single. Solitary Skittle.
So, we are working on numbers and counting so why not include two of my favorite things? Ten frames and Cookie Crisp cereal!
MMMMM CEREAL…..
(Also note…my classroom and teaching are so not Pinterest perfect. We’re using dinosaur ten frame mats…bubblegum number cards…and cookies…None of our materials match or coordinate. And guess what?! We’re still learning. And engaged. And having fun. And not one of the ‘stachs complained!)
I simply gave each child a ten frame mat. A handful of cereal and turned over a number card. We identified the number and we made the number on ten frame mat.
This gave me some great insight into who was getting one to one correspondence and who needed some help. It also gave some informal data into who is recognizing numbers and who isn’t! And allowed for some intense one on one instruction.
See…fun, hands on, engaging, YUMMY and we’re learning and gathering data and informal information to guide instruction. LEARNING MUST BE FUN!
And, yes, it’s differentiated!
Some of us worked on numbers to 10 and some worked on numbers to 20!
And yes we all ate our cereal after we finished!
Here’s a fun cookie freebie for ya! Color and blackline spinners and differentiated recording sheets! Click the images to get your freebies from the freebies page!
And because we had so much fun with the cookies in our small groups, I decided to create some centers and activities to keep the cookie fun going!
Here’s my newest creation! 50 pages of cookie-counting fun! Ten-frame matching, puzzles, math the room, ten-frame counting mats, and more! Easy to prep and use and easy to differentiate!
(Note: I cannot remember where I saw the idea to use cereal for counting. If you know where the original idea came from, please let me know so I can give credit!)