You know us teachers….we’re all about bring fun into the classroom and finding uses for all kinds of toys and objects and random things to make learning fun for our students. When I saw these new Smurf houses toys in the McDonalds Happy Meals, I knew they would make amazing learning centers/workstations/hippopotamuses for our classroom. So, I sent the Mister a text and said “GO TO MCDONALDS AND GET 20 OF THE SMURF HOUSES!”. And he did. Then I turned our Smurf houses into an addition to 10 sorting activity! We got 20 houses so we have extra! So many possibilities for these awesome toys….letters and numbers, middle and ending sound, vowels, subtraction….so. many. possibilities.
First, you’ll need to get some of the Smurf houses! We were able to purchase just the toys at our local McDonald’s for $1.60 each. I have heard other teachers say they paid around $2 each. So hopefully your local restaurant will hook you up. Or you can just buy lots of Happy Meals! (Now I’m craving McDonalds!). The roofs of the houses pop off which makes them a prime object for sorting. They do have the little windows but they are so small so it would be challenging to make sorting objects that size.
Next, I opened up the houses and removed the cardboard inserts and the two Smurf figures inside. KEEP THE SMURFS! Those little figures will make the perfect manipulatives for addition to 10! Or for ten frames! Then I taped the new inserts that I created inside the house!
Then I printed and laminated the cute little gnome addition cards I created. Gnomes…mushrooms…the gnomes go home to their numbers. The answer to the addition equation is like their address! See how I did that?!
And now you’re ready to add and sort!
The students choose a card, solve the equation and place the card into the house! They can take the lid off and replace the lid or leave the lid off. This adds in some fine motor skills practice, too!
Of course there is a recording sheet included so they can write their equations and answers!
Click the images for your addition to 10 freebies!
CLICK HERE TO GET THE SUBTRACTION CARDS AND RECORDING SHEET!
