Snowball Fight!

My school outlaws snowballs....but I think the administration won't mind this kind.

My students love playing this game...we played with jingle bells in December.  Now I just need some big white pom-poms.  I have little ones, I have white unifix cubes, I could use ping-pong balls or styrofoam balls.  And look, my cotton balls are pretty big too.

First we count how many snowballs we have.  Then everyone will close their eyes and I will hide some in a cup...or maybe a hat, or even a mitten.  Once everyone opens their eyes we will try to figure out how many are missing.  We will practice our math talk.  That math talk is important to the common core, and important for these little ones to understand their thinking and learning processes and to find the words to express that.

We play this whole group a few times before I turn them loose.  Then I will help them record their game on these little handouts.  The first one is a recording sheet for their games, the second page is to help with the math talk.

 

I am going to link up with Freebies on the First, so be sure to follow me and leave a comment if you find this useful.  Just click on the picture to download or here 

for your copy of the recording pages.