Free Math Printables Rounding Rainbow

 Rounding Rainbow

Free math printable to teach rounding 

Rounding. It can be a difficult concept for kids to grasp, especially in earlier grades. If they don't have good number sense built or haven't gotten down their place value skills, it can be downright confusing!

While it's important to build those skills, it can also be helpful to give kids a visual aid - a little reminder to use while they're rounding numbers. With my own kids and students, I have always used the analogy of a hill or rainbow - my daughter's math book even uses an umbrella with raindrops dripping off the sides! 

Of course, it's great to know the rule of "4 and below, rounds down. 5 and up, round up", but it's also important to show kids VISUALLY why that is. A great tool I love to use to show this is money. Telling students, "I have 27 dollars. Is that closer to 20 dollars or 30?" always seems to work great!

Another great tip is to use a number line first. Show kids visually that 26 is closer to 30 than 20.

Of course, practice is always the best way to get those rounding skills down! You can use this math center along with included worksheets to practice. I'll also be adding a few new rounding sets this week - so stay tuned! There are plenty of free rounding games and tips you can find online too.

I made this math aid and worksheet set especially for kids (like my own little one) who struggle with the concept of rounding. It is also a great poster to hang in your classroom or homeschool space. 

This FREE set includes:

• A Poster
• A Math Center
• 5 Worksheets

I hope that it will help your students who need that little extra reminder during work time - 4 and below rounds down, 5 and above rounds up!

You can download this freebie here!

*Please refer people to this page, not directly to the google folder. Thank you!

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Free Math Curriculum Division Strategy Math Center for Young Learners

 Free Division Math Center Printable

Teach division visually

To access this freebie, just scroll down!

Last week I posted a free multiplication center here and talked about the way we all probably learned to multiply. Standard algorithm. 3 times 3 is 9. Memorize it. 

Much the same goes for division. But division is a little bit easier to show visually. Why? Because it's something most kids already do in everyday life. Sharing crackers or grapes with their friends or dividing a paper in half for a craft are parts of every kid's life. 

But when shown the division symbol and given an equation - even with dots drawn on a chalkboard, it can be difficult to really KNOW what division means. That's why math centers like this one can be such a great tool - and why I am including it here for free!

This math center comes with the following:

• 12 full-page jars numbered from 1 to 12, plus one blank
• Firefly counters to divide between the jars
• Color and black and white division mats
• Recording sheet

There are SO many ways this center can be used!

Division Mats

You can use the division as a very easy and low-prep way to have students practice dividing on their own. They can be laminated or put into a page protector and used with whiteboard markers, or even with tiny beads. You can give students an equation to work out (like 10 divided by 5) and model how to use the mat to do this (put 1 dot into 5 jars until you have made 10. There will be two in each jar.)

Divison Recording Sheet

This can be used as a recording sheet with the larger center, or it can be used as a simple worksheet. Students can divide small objects or pencil dots between the jars and write equations in the blank spaces. 

Division Center

The main center of this free unit is these full-page jars and firefly counters. Kids can divide the fireflies between the jars to learn the concept of division, and try out writing some equations on the recording sheet. You could slowly and do 1-2 equations per day, or use this as an intervention center for struggling learners.

I hope you and your learners - at home or in the classroom! - enjoy this freebie! Let me know if you do - I always love to hear your comments!

*PLEASE note that if you wish to share this freebie, please share this page link, not the google drive URL. It helps support my blog and allows me time to create more freebies like this! Thanks!

DOWNLOAD THIS FREEBIE HERE

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Free Math Curriculum Expanded Form Puzzles Free Math Center Printable

 Free Expanded Form Printable Math Center Puzzles With Recording Sheets

With Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, and Ten Thousands

Help your kids practice writing in expanded form with these interactive, printable math centers and recording sheets. The best part? They're FREE!

Did you ever look at a large number like 15, 657, 321 and just skip over it and think "fifteen thousand....something." For kids in grades 3 and up, going from learning about numbers like hundreds or thousands to learning about numbers up to ten thousand or one million can feel like a big jump. 

Not only can they be hard to read, but it can be difficult to imagine such a large number - how many of us ever actually see ten thousand of anything?

That's where expanded form comes in, and why it's such an important part of teaching math the "new" way! Kids learn to build numbers first with items like place value blocks, then learn to visualize those amounts when writing in expanded form. This can REALLY be a big help in later grades (high school, college) when they need to plus those big numbers into complicated equations. If they are able to 'visualize' the number, the problems they encounter will make a lot more sense.

Just think about measuring the square feet or metres of your own yard or home. Someone may tell you that a backyard behind a home you want to buy is 7000 square feet, but can you actually picture what that might look like - how big or small that might be? Learning to visualize numbers will also help kids later on in life when making decisions like this.

And all it takes is a few minutes of practice every day!

So to help you and your kids or students practice this all-important concept, I made these expanded form puzzles and recording sheets. I highly recommend starting off slow with younger kids. Take a few tens puzzles out and some place value blocks or legos. Practice building the numbers, then taking them apart and building them again. Show them how all of the numbers relate (if you have more than 9 ones, you have a ten-block!) 

You can use the recording sheets for extra practice too, or to have students in a classroom record their learning for the day. These can also be laminated or put into a page protector and used over and over again with a dry-erase marker.

You can download this freebie below. I hope it brings some fun to your learning!

DOWNLOAD THIS FREE CENTER HERE

(Google Drive link - please share this page link, not the drive link. Thank you!)

Draw and Write - A New Unit for beginning Writers

 

Draw and Write: Teach Your Beginning Writers to Organize Their Thoughts and Write Their Stories

Have you ever listened to your students or kids tell you a made-up story? Their imagination can run wild! But when it comes to writing down their stories, having them put words to paper can be a big challenge.

Why? Let's think about what we're asking kids to do when they're in grades pre-k through 1. First, we're asking them to think about something - a story, a memory, a place. Next, we're asking them to use their newly developed motor skills to write those thoughts down. That's a big deal! Putting pencil to paper is one skill they have to focus on - while actually using that plus their phonics skills is another. AND they have to remember their ideas!

That is why I made prompts like these for my own kids when they were younger. 

Here is how these draw and write prompts work:

How to use draw and write prompts

1 - One day, have students complete the drawing prompt. There are simple prompts such as the ones shown in the pictures on this page. Instead of students having to come up with their own ideas completely, we're taking off the pressure by giving them something to start with. 

2 - The next step depends on the age and skills of your students. If they're already writing on their own, then let them write about the drawing they made the previous day. If they're still very young, you may want to focus on some words they could use first. Take a day to go over some useful sight words or some phonics skills. You can model for them how to sound out words, or use their own spelling.

3 - If you wish, you could spend the third day going over what they wrote. They could share it in small groups, or in a small-group conference with you. You can go over sounding out words or using word walls or folders as help.

These prompts are also great for intervention or sped classes with older students.

My own homeschooled kids are a bit older now (8 and 10) but they still had a blast filling these prompts out with all kinds of silly responses.

The best part? you can try 3 of these prompts for FREE! Just download them from my TeachersPayTeachers shop!

If you'd like to buy the whole set (you get 50 prompts for just $3!) you can click here

Free Math Curriculum Lets Build Arrays Unit Early Multiplication

 Let's Build Arrays

A Free Printable Unit for Early Multiplication

This is part of a series of free math resources on my blog. For the full page of freebies, click here or the menu up top

Multiplication. Do you remember being taught the standard algorithm in school?

Your teacher might have told you that multiplying was just like adding a number over and over again (true!). She may then have written all of the multiplication tables on the board and had you memorize them until you could recite each one in seconds. Having that strong grasp of what multiplication really MEANT and LOOKED like didn't take up a whole lot of class time. Or at least that was my 3rd grade experience in the 90s.

Using an array mat to learn about multiplication is such a smart way to teach, and I was so happy to find these for my own kids when I decided to homeschool. In fact, I made this very unit to use with my own youngest daughter next week! I hope you can use it in your homeschool or classroom too!

Every array comes with 12 rows and 12 columns of boxes. This is so that children can learn to multiply up to 12 x 12. You can teach this concept in two ways.

You can write the multiplication equation at the top of the page first, and talk about how multiplying is an easier way of adding things together that are in equal groups. You can then show this by adding a number of dots to so many columns and rows to show the problem visually.

Here's a quick video I made on Instagram showing how:

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How to teach multiplication through arrays with my FREEBIE center! Teaching multiplication with array sheets is a great way to give kids a visual mental image of what multiplication MEANS - and it's so easy to prep and use! This freebie comes from my blog (messybeautifulfun.com). It includes all the printables shown in these photos. Here is how you can put it to work in your homeschool or classroom: Talk about addition with your students. Ask them if they know an easy way to count equal groups of objects, rather than counting them one by one. Speak about how multiplication is like adding the same amount over and over again, but it makes it easier (and involves a lot less writing) Ask them how we can add (for example) 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3. (We can count, we can skip count by 3s, we can use a number line) Show them your NEW way of adding an amount over and over again using multiplication. Adding 3 five times is the same as the equation 5 x 3. It means we are going to add 3 five times. Show kids how to number the rows on the left of the array. Then add 3 dots to each. "See, we have 5 rows of 3 dots or 3 five times. 5 x 3! Skip count the dots or count them one by one (depending on the stage of your learners) Once you go through this a few times, kids can use the center in small groups, or use the smaller arrays in a math journal or as a worksheet.

I truly hope that you and your kids enjoy this freebie!

Remember to subscribe to my FREE newsletter for free monthly themed packs for your classroom or homeschool too!

Get This FREE Array Mat Unit Here

Free Math Curriculum 120 Charts Printables

Free 120 Charts

For Counting, Skip Counting & Number Practice

This is part of a series of math freebies being released on my blog! You can download the rest by going to https://www.messybeautifulfun.com/p/about-menu-links-page-introduction.html

Counting, skip counting, and knowing which numbers come before and after a given number are important skills to be mastered in elementary years. If kids learn nothing else, great number sense and counting skills will help them go a long way in upper math levels.When kids know that 91 is one more than 90, then they know how to add. When they realize that 90 is 1 less than 91, they've learned the basics of subtraction. 

These 120 charts can be used in a variety of ways. You can practice counting up to 120, or backward from 120 to 1.

I send out fun-themed charts like this in my free monthly newsletter every month! Subscribe here!

You can practice skip counting within 120 by hiding numbers under mini blocks or erasers.

You can cover some of the numbers on the chart with small objects or color them out with a marker and have kids tell you which number is missing.

All of these are fantastic ways to practice counting.

 You can grab this freebie here!

Free Math Curriculum Fractions Decimals and Percents Center Manipulatives

 Free Fractions Decimals and Percents Manipulatives to Print

This freebie is part of my new freebie page on this blog! I hope you enjoy! You can see the rest of the freebies here or by clicking the menu link above!

This math center is all about getting kids to recognize the connection between fractions, decimals and percentages. 

This concept can be tricky for a lot of kids to master and having strong visuals can really help. Inside this unit you'll find a chart that shows the relation between the three math concepts - it comes in both full-size and quarter-sized posters for classroom or student use. It's also a great addition to math journals!

You'll also get tokens that students can use for adding decimals, fractions, or percentages to make a whole - or to use as a comparison tool.

Project idea

A great project to use these for is printing out multiple copies of a favourite poster or painting your kids love. Then, cut it up (or have them do it) into halves, thirds, quarters, etc. They can then match the fraction, decimal, and percentage pieces to those pieces of the picture. It's a HUGE help for visual learners and a fun math craft for everyone.

Grab the Free Unit Here!