Tuesday, February 9, 2016

// // 4 comments

Building Tens Castles (Preschool/Kindergarten Math)

Building Tens Castles is a fun and easy way to learn and review basic math facts (what adds up to ten/deconstructing ten).  My older preschoolers and kindergartener love building, so this is a perfect fit for playful math. You can also use it as an informal assessment.



Simple Supplies:

* building blocks (we use wooden blocks--affiliate link HERE--but you can really use whatever kind you have handy.

* 4-5 bowls

* table or floor space to spread out and work

* optional: favorite action or doll figurines


Easy How To:

You can set this up for a formal 1-on-1 activity, or just integrate it into your regular play.  I prefer to play.

1- To set it up, place your choice of blocks (between 1 and 10) in each bowl.

2- Explain to your child that Tens Castles can only be built with 10 blocks.  He needs to count the blocks in the bowl, figure out how many more he needs, and build the castle.  You can put out the figurine to wait for its castle to be built!



3- Repeat a couple times with different numbers of blocks!

4- Advanced/older kids can also subtract.  Put between 11 and 20 blocks in a bowl, and let your kiddo figure out how many he needs to take away to build a Tens Castle!




We are joining the Learning With Manipulatives team to bring you a great collection of building block learning ideas!!


Here are more great ideas for learning with different kinds of building blocks:



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4 comments:

Devany said...

This is such a simply brilliant idea!

Kristina said...

Such a wonderful and simple math activity!

Adventures of Adam said...

What a simple yet effective way of teaching number bonds to ten.

Swapna said...

This is interesting! Would love to see your posts in the Practical Mondays Link Up:)