If you are looking for some last-minute Easter activities for the next few days or even to use after returning from the holiday, you will LOVE these April math centers.
My first grade students used to need a lot of practice with fact fluency! They learned them in the context of fact families. I found this to be such an effective strategy and hands-down better than rote memorization.
WHAT ARE FACT FAMILIES?
Fact families are related facts. A fact family has two addition facts and two subtraction facts.
They are pairs and their inverses.
Let me give you an example.
5+4=9
4+5=9
9-4=5
9-5=4
By learning facts within fact families, students see a connection between addition and subtraction. I like to show students is that if they know one equation, they automatically know 3 more!
Why Fact Families?
When students begin thinking in terms of math fact families or math fact family triangles, they are being given their first introductions to the commutative properties of both addition and multiplication.
In all, counting all four math operations, there are close to 500 basic math facts that students are expected to develop fluency with. Consider how overwhelming it would be to be expected to have to memorize 500 facts!
When students learn commutativity, that number gets cut almost in half.
Fact Family Fluency Activity
To practice fact fluency in fact families, I used this activity with a yummy Peep theme as a center! My class LOVED it! Who wouldn’t? It’s an activity that looks good enough to eat!
This April Fact Fluency Center includes 42 cards, so you can switch them up and use it for several days.
Each marshmallow bunny card has 3 fact family numbers.
The kids took turns picking a card from an Easter basket which just made it even more special.
Then, they had to create four related facts from their bunny card and write them on the recording sheet.
If this is something you might be interested in, you can find it at my TPT store here.
This fun bunny center is great for reviewing telling time to five minute intervals.
It’s a card matching center and also includes some good old black and white practice pages you could use for morning work or homework.
You can download this freebie here if you like!
It’s always nice to hear from you and get some feedback at my shop on freebies too!
Happy teaching!
This is too cute and it's exactly what we are reviewing now- in my cart it goes!!
Melissa
Keep Calm and Love First Grade
Thanks for sharing! This looks awesome!!
Jasmine
Buzzing With Mrs. McClain