Why Use Math Mats in First Grade?
I love the versatility of dry erase pockets! They are great for so many reasons; they are easy to prepare, easy to clean, durable, and students LOVE them! They are great to use for checking for understanding and guided practice. Students can hold them up like dry erase boards to quickly show their work.
Today I wanted to share a few of the First Grade Math Mats I created to use in dry erase pockets. They are great for whole group and small group instruction. Once the mats are introduced, they also make a great independent center!
Add some simple math manipulatives and you are ready to go! In this activity, students use dominoes to work on the Commutative Property of addition (aka Turn-Around Facts). Students place the domino in the first spot, write the fact, flip the domino, and write the turn-around fact.
You can walk around the room while students are working to quickly check their understanding of the activity. When students complete the mat, they erase it, grab another domino, and keep going! That is one of the great things about this mat, there is no “I’m finished!” The exact same activity is perfect for centers!!!
With this mat, students record all the ways to Make Ten. All you need are two-sided counters. Students flip counters and record the different combinations.
Use cubes to work on doubles. You can orally give the students a double to build with the cubes. Then they record the doubles fact. At a center, students can build and record different doubles, you could provide doubles flash cards, or they can make their own doubles.
Students can put the “Fact-Family” in their house. Give students three numbers in a family to record at the top (triangle flash cards work perfect for this!). Then students write all four facts in the family. When they complete one fact family, they can grab another flash card and do another!
Or you can use dominoes for the family!
Students can practice their place value skills with this mat. Give students a number to build with place value blocks. They also record the number in tens and ones. When you are ready to move from the concrete to the representational stage of understanding, students can color the number with their dry erase markers on the mats.
Students can also compare two numbers using place value! All you need are number cards to make a quick center.
Give students a time to record in digital form, then have them draw the hands on the clock. Add a set of digital time cards and you have a center ready to go!
Use dice to work on adding three numbers. Have students who are working at different levels? Add dice with larger numbers for easy differentiation! Another activity students can play for extended periods of time!
