Math Work Stations

I am so excited to try Math Work Stations this year!  I just love Debbie Diller and her books.  I had bought her Literacy Work Stations book several years ago and used them in my class.  They have worked wonderfully!  This summer, I bought her Math Work Stations book.  If you haven't checked it out, I would encourage you to.  It is awesome!

We are in our 3rd week of doing them, and the students are doing great.  There are 5 types of work stations:  beginning number concepts, addition/subtraction, place value, geometry, and measurement.  I do 2 different activities for each station for a total of 10 work stations.  Here is my work station chart for my kiddos.

Using simple numbers for each station is easier than having a card with the name of the work station.  I also use a storage system that is labeled with the numbers for easy matching.  Here is where I store my math work station materials.

Students simply find their picture to start.  The 2 numbers next to them are the 2 work stations they will do for the day.  My students do 2 math work stations per day so every student gets to do them all during the week. 

Here are some of the activities my students have done this week.

For place value, I have 2 students play Race to 100.  Students take turns rolling a dice and adding that many cubes to the place value mat on the 1s side.  Whenever a student gets 10, he joins the 10 cubes together and moves them to the 10s side.  The first person to reach 100 is the winner.  You can also play this game with pennies and dimes.

Hint:  It is important for the students to have different-colored cubes.  Less confusion that way.

A really fun activity for the kids is playing Odd or Even? with a ladybug mat and black cubes.  Students roll 2 die and add the numbers together.  They place that many black cubes on the ladybug mat in groups of 2.  If the number is odd, they write the number on the side of the ladybug mat labeled odd.  If the number is even, they write the number on the side of the ladybug mat labeled even.  This is a great activity for visual learners.

For a geometry activity this week students used shapes to make insects.  Not sure what kind this is, but it's cute, don't you think? :-)

For addition, students worked on acting out addition problems with insect counters.

Students love doing this activity.  There are several cards to choose from that fit into this 100s chart tray.  Students choose one and try to decide where the numbers go.  It has become a game to try to get all 100 number tiles in there before time is up.

There are a lot of great activities in Debbie Diller's book, and I will be trying them all before the year is out.  I hope you all enjoyed the pics.  Have a great day!