Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching: Trade & Grade Hop! Racing Into Place Value!

Welcome to the Trade & Grade Hop!

So many fabulous educators have hooked up to give you this fabulous hop of wonderful products & a FREEBIE! Also, you can enter for an AWESOME GIVEAWAY at the bottom too! This review is fabulous, you must read on.......

I had the honor of trading with the fabulous

Kim Lander from

Splish! Splash! Ms. Lander's 2nd Grade Class!

(click on the picture or names above for a direct link to Kim's store)

The product that I had the honor of implementing was:

Racing Into Place Value

(click on the picture for a direct link to the full product/check out the preview file)

This product contains 4 differentiated Math activities covering the following Common Core Standards:

1.NBT.A.1

1.NBT.B.2

1.NBT.C.4

1.NBT.C.5

These centers can be used with Kindergarten - 2nd Grade.

So, when I received this product I was so excited! I'm a Literacy Coach & 2nd Grade Title I Teacher, so I was super excited to hook up with one of my 1st Grade teachers to get in her classroom during the math block to start implementing. She was excited to accept!

So first I started at home in the kitchen prepping. The pack includes 4 completed, differentiated centers dealing with place value. I printed the pack, some pages I used white card-stock for, laminated everything & started cutting!

Here's what the final 4 centers looked like all ready to go. I hot glued the laminated covers to the front of large envelopes. The covers included directions for the activities for the teacher to easily implement the center. Inside the envelopes are all the pieces needed to use these activities. Including a laminated page with child friendly directions. When I say everything is included, I mean EVERYTHING IS INCLUDED!!!!! Just prep it & start using it!!!!

Then I set up the 4 centers in my 1st Grade teacher's classroom.

1st Center: Racing to One Hundred!

2nd Center: Revving Up!

3rd Center: Start Your Engines!

4th Center: Race Car Regrouping!

Then, we got started with the daily math centers using these 4 fabulous centers!

1st Center: Racing to One Hundred!

I made 2 copies of the game mat which is a 100s chart. We usually have 4-6 students in each group. So students can play in pairs or threes. I copied the dice piece on card-stock for durability. Students each picked a chip of their color choice & then decided the order to play in. Students rolled the dice moving ahead, one, five or ten squares. Doing an informal assessment was very easy here. Some students had to count everything out, while others new right away to skip 5 or go directly under the current number they were on when adding 10 on the mat. I could see right away what skills students where missing. The students of course loved this activity. They were playing a fun game with out a care in the world. Completely engaged! What they were actually doing was practicing math skills needed to move forward in 2nd Grade next year!

2nd Center: Revving Up!

At this center students are counting by 10s in various orders. All sets of cards are color coded for easy organizing. Students picked a set of numbers & organized them by counting in 10s. Some students caught on really quickly. Others needed a visual of a 100s chart to see the pattern. All of the students can count: 10, 20, 30, 40 & so on. But the couldn't all count 7, 17, 27, 37 & so on. So this was another easy center to practice some much needed skill work & do an informal assessment at. All the students were completely engaged & wanting to do more when time was up. The recording sheet is simple to use & for students to record their number patterns. On day 2, students went back to work & had already gained new comprehension of this concept.

3rd Center: Start Your Engines!

This center is differentiated for all learners. The center comes with race cars that have a number on them & a set of blue keys & red keys depending on if you are going to count 1 more & 1 less or 10 more & 10 less. Students started by finding a race car & counting 10 more & 10 less, the students struggled at first. I should have started with 1 more & 1 less until they mastered that concept (my fault). Anyhow, we proceeded with students taking a race car with a number. Then they were to find the key that represented 10 more than the number, and another key that represented 10 less than the number. Sounds simple right? Nope, their mental math skills weren't there yet. They were struggling with this concept, so good thing we were working on it. Which was a HUGE informal observation to drive further instruction. So I provided a 100s chart to give the students a visual connection. They got it!!!! Some students once again had to count one number at a time, while others could find their number on the 100s chart & move up or down for 10 more or 10 less. On day 2, they were rock-in at this center! I do suggest starting with 1 more & 1 less at first. For your lower students, have the visual of a 100s chart available.

4th Center: Race Car Regrouping!

Thank god for manipulatives! Can I get an AMEN?!?! First let me tell you, this center has strips of carrots in tens you can use. But I'm more of a cube gal so I went that direction. Either way, use manipulatives. This was brand new to this class. It is a concept taught in the 4th 9 weeks where I am at. But, as above, the first go around was a lot of guidance. Then the following day they were catching on! Yay! I used a place mat that was provided, a T Chart of a ten & one. Each pair had one to share, & they worked together. Students pulled a car & represented the number in cubes. How many tens? How many ones? Do we have enough ones to make a ten? These were all our question stems to guide students. Students were also recording answers on the recording sheets provided from the pack. This was another great informal assessment activity. This got students thinking about a lot & it was easy to observe their thinking routes so to speak. The next day, a review mini-lesson occurred which really help the students to nail back down the concept.