Teaching Number Order First Grade Math

Math in first grade is all about number recognition and developing an understanding of numbers.  Recognizing place value for tens and ones and grouping tens and ones are important concepts that students will use again and again in future math concepts.  We built a little extra practice activity based on number order and played a few first grade math games with number order.

Teaching Number Order: Activities for first grade math

 

Number Order Math Activities for First Grade


This is such an easy way to build on concepts or practice number order.  Big Sister is a big fan of math and she always  does her math homework first.  (She does NOT get her love of math from her mom!)  

We used these craft foam sticks that we received from 

Use a permanent marker to write numbers on one side.  I chose random numbers between 1-99 so Big Sister could focus on the tens and ones.  First graders typically work on numbers up to 120 early in the year, so feel free to make number sticks including hundreds digits as well.


We started on a few activities to work on number order.  At first, I had Big Sister order the numbers from least to greatest.  She did really well with this.  Part of identifying relationships between numbers is being aware of the terms, “least” and “greatest”.  Have the child arrange the numbers from greatest to least as well, after scattering the number sticks around again.

Our second math activity was turning all of the number sticks over.  I had Big Sister turn the sticks over one at a time and name the number.  She then had to tell me how many tens and how many ones make up the number.  This is a good way to work on place value.

Arranging the numbers from greatest to least.



Our third activity used a cup.  We put all of the number sticks into the cup, number side down.  I had Big Sister draw a stick one at a time and name the number.  We then pulled a second number stick and made a greater than/less than statement using the two numbers.  (e.g. Four is less than thirty seven).  


Let us know if you try any of these activities.  

You may also be interested in the first grade math concept, skip counting by 5s.



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First Grade Teaching Comma Use Activity

Big Sister is in First Grade now.  Wait, when did THAT happen??! She is learning so much in first grade.  And I’ll be honest. I’m no teacher, I have no idea how to teach the skills needed to graduate the first grade.  I do see what she comes home with for home work, and figure out ways to make the extra practice fun.  We practice sight words and other reading and math activities in creative ways to extend the learning.  It makes it fun for her to do the homework and extend the learning.  

One concept first graders learn in English Language Arts is Comma Use.  I made up these movable comma pieces to practice using commas in different ways.


Hands on comma activity for first grade English Language Arts

Comma Activity for First Graders

In first grade, students are required to use commas correctly in dates and to separate single words in a series.  We went beyond the pencil and paper with this easy hands-on activity.

This post contains affiliate links.

To make the comma pieces, I used recycled bottle caps.  Save those milk jug, juice jug, and bottle tops!  (Using the commas, my friends!)


I cut a circle from a label sheet using a small circle cutter.  Peel the backing from the label sheets and stick the circles onto the bottle caps.

Use a black marker to draw a comma onto the bottle cap.  Instant comma.


I wrote a few large sentences on printer paper and showed Big Sister how to move the comma pieces into the correct places.



She really got into this activity.  We made date and series sentences for her to practice.  This is an activity that she wanted to do each day after school.

Practice comma usage in sentences and dates for First Grade English Language Arts


Let us know if you make this activity!  We love to hear from our readers.

Looking for more creative English Language Arts activities?  Follow along on our Sight Word and Beginning Reading Pinterest board.  

You can find all of our blog posts in one place by following us on Pinterest: 

Little Blue Little Yellow Magic Foaming Dough

Oh, how we love sensory play activities!  From water bin play to soda dough, we love to get messy and learn through the senses.  We decided to give magic foaming dough a try, and oh boy.  Was this ever fun!  This crumbly dough is moldable, soft, and the best part is the magic.  It brings a little science into the sensory play while entrancing the kids with the foaming, goopy, messy fun.  (This post contains affiliate links.  We received a free book to complete this post. Our opinions are our own.)
 
We were honored to review Asia Citro’s new book, 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids and check out all of the best and easiest play time activities.  We really had a blast with our Magic Foaming Dough, but the pictures in this book really drew us in.  The kids kept pointing at each page  and saying, “OOOOh, let’s do that!” There are over 150 activities in the book that help develop creativity and skills…all without a screen.  I loved the easy directions and the fact that activities were budget friendly.  This would be a great gift idea for parents to keep kids engaged, entertained, and learning.


Magic Foaming Dough Activity for the book, Little Blue and Little Yellow:

Magic foaming dough to explore the book, Little Blue and Little Yellow
We’ve done a sensory activity to explore Little Blue and Little Yellow using Kool Aid puffy paint before so when we made this foaming dough, we were ready for the color mixing fun.

We whipped up a batch of magic foaming dough, following the easy directions in the book.  We separated the dough into two bowls and added blue food coloring to one bowl and yellow food coloring to the second bowl.   These colors looked great next to each other.

Like the directions said, it was dry and crumbly, but completely moldable.  We explored the colors and like in  Little Blue and Little Yellow, we pretended some of the yellow moved over to the blue, and vise versa.

The kids had fun guessing what color blue and yellow make when combined. (Baby Girl’s guess of It makes PINK!” was received by groans from Big Sister and Little Guy.  ((Guess we need to work on the color mixing with Baby Girl…haha!))

“Look it makes GREEN!”

Little Blue and Little Yellow made Little Green.

After the kids played for a while, I told them I had a surprise to make this dough magic.  They were SO completely excited!  I gave them a squirt bottle of vinegar.  (Icing squeeze bottles work really well for this part!) …and the magic begins!

It was really neat to see how much this dough foams up.  I wasn’t quite expecting such a reaction, but it turned out to be pretty magic for mom, too 😉

It was pretty cool to see the foaming yellow, blue, and green in different areas of our bin.



We had to get our hands in there to play.  Big Sister looooooved this!  She mixed up the colors even more to make a vivid green color.

She kept saying, “I love this stuff! I love this stuff!”



Even when the bubbles died down, it was still super fun to play with.  The mixture turned into a silky smooth goopy sensory bin.  We really found out what happened when little blue and little green gave each other a hug.  Just like in the book 🙂


For the recipe to make Magic Foaming Dough, get the 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids book.  You won’t regret it!

Mix It Up Fingerprint Candle Craft

Have you introduced the kids to books by Herve Tullet?  Not too long ago, we read Press Here and made a fun sensory shaving cream bin to go along with the colors and active interaction the book inspires.  When we were given the chance to review Herve Tullet’s newest book, Mix It Up!, we jumped at the chance.  Tullet’s books are colorful, bright, inspiring, and FUN!
Take a peek inside Mix It Up!  :
We loved the active learning and color mixing in Mix It Up!  The pages inspire readers to get involved with the book, mixing colors to make new colors, and then to go off and create.   We decided to make sand fingerprint art and mix up our own colors using colored sand.  We made art and a colorful candle holder craft that would make a great DIY gift.
 


Mix It Up!
Art and Craft

The book has colors everywhere, so when we pulled out our rainbow of sand.  We were handed down this set, but any rainbow sand set would work for this activity.

We spread out the book on the floor as inspiration and got started.  Baby Girl used a little tub of glue to make glue fingerprints on white paper.

This part of the activity alone was mesmerizing for her.  She made dots all over the page just like the dots and fingerprints in the book.

Now for the fun part!  We added color to the glue fingerprints and started with solid colors.  How beautiful is this rainbow of fingerprints?

Then things got interesting!  We added dabs of color and mixed up the different colored sands to make different colors.

We really did Mix It Up!



Baby Girl wanted to do footprints with glue, too but we decided our glue tub was too little for whole feet.  She ended up making toe prints with glue instead.

After practicing with fingerprints on paper, we moved onto our candle holder craft.


Fingerprint Candle Holder Craft



I showed Baby Girl how to make her glue fingerprints onto the side of a mason jar.  We carefully poured the colored sand onto the fingerprints, keeping the jar over white paper to catch the excess sand.

We covered all of the glue fingerprints with sand.

 
It started to look just like the colorful pages from the book.

We made a few candle holders and some ended up more mixed up than others.  I love how the colored sand mixed together.

These candle holders look great in the sunlight…

…and by candlelight!  We’ll be gifting a few of these candle holders to friends and family.  They make a great DIY gift made by kids.

 
This was one fun book and we are so happy that we got to enjoy it and create along with it.
 
 
The best news is that you can enter on each of our Preschool Book Club bloggers websites to increase your odds.  
 Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails: Fingerprint Art
Homegrown Friends: Painted Salt Dough Ornaments
Mama. Papa. Bubba. blog: Color Theory Ornaments
Buggy and Buddy: Mixing Colors

You can see all of our posts in the Preschool Book Club here:

hands-on activities to explore social emotional development through children's books.

Love exploring books with hands-on play?  

Grab our NEW book, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books!  It’s 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development.

Video Game Party Ideas

 
You know we love party fun with our kids, right?    We haven’t had a lot of experience with video games, so we knew that when we introduced the kids to gaming, we wanted it to be educational and energetic.  The kids get up, get moving, and jump, dance, and MOVE!  We’ll definitely be using this system all winter long to keep the kids active when the temps drop outdoors.
 
The best thing about these games are the educational aspect.  Kids learn math, reading, and science skills in their age-appropriate level.  They are challenged to combine learning with activity right in their class curriculum.  The super cool motion sensor puts the child INTO the game, and they love seeing themselves up on the screen.  
 
We had to share this cool game system with our friends, and had a party to do just that!
 


Video Game Party Ideas

We sent out Leaf Frog branded invitations to a few friends and started planning our party fun:
Every party needs snacks.  When the kids are busy running, jumping, climbing, snowboarding, dancing, and karate chopping, they work up a sweat.  And need a little energy boost with healthy snacks.  We had our party after a long school day, so these kids were famished from a day of learning.  Getting the energy out with friends and healthy snacks were definitely a must!

Of course, we had to have frog snacks for our Leaf Frog party!  Well, we didn’t HAVE to, but they were very cute.  And the kids gobbled these happy frogs up!


To make the frog snacks, cut a cucumber slice in half.  Set one half piece on top of a whole slice.  Slice the other half piece into half again and use those parts for legs.  Slice a grape tomato into half and then half again.  Press this onto the top cucumber to make a smile.  It should stick.  Use a tiny little dab of icing to stick halves of raisins onto the top cucumber.  Done.  Watch them hop off the plate and into the kids’ tummies.

Snack Attack Snack Mix:  (super easy to mix up and super loved by active kids)
Ingredients~
1/2 cup dried cherries or cranberries
2 cups whole grain rice chex cereal
1/2 cup roaster pistachios (optional)
3 cups (Amaon affiliate link) Kashi Heart To Heart Honey Toasted Oat Cereal


Directions~ Mix all ingredients together.  Place in a bowl.  Serve!

We ended our gaming party with an awards ceremony.  This was an intense moment as the kids lined up for their awards!  My kiddos maaaaay have been wearing their awards all week.  They are pretty proud!
 
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Orange Zest Salt Dough Recipe

We love a fun play dough recipe!  From glow in the dark dough to crayon dough, we’ve done a lot of dough experiments.  This time, we whipped up a salt dough recipe with an added ingredient…orange zest!

This recipe is perfect for ornaments for the holidays, or just a fun sensory experience for playing with.  The kids loved zesting their oranges (and then eating the insides) and have actually been asking to zest an orange each day since!




This post contains affiliate links.


To make orange zest salt dough, you’ll need a few ingredients:

flour
salt
water
orange

We started with our standard salt dough recipe and added 1/2 cup of orange zest.

The kids seriously zested oranges for close to an hour.  Our salt dough had more than a little pulp added in, but that’s ok.  We used a box cheese grater and that worked great for the kids.  Keep a close eye on children if they are zesting oranges.  It’s easy to scrape knuckles, but with supervision, this is a fine activity for children (my five year old and 7 year old did this part…I helped the 3 year old with hand over hand assistance).



Our kitchen smelled amazing.


Mix the zest into the salt dough and knead, knead, knead.  This is the important part and if your dough seems to sticky, keep kneading.  You can add a bit more flour, too.

Awesome!  Once the zest was fully kneaded into the salt dough, the scent was less strong.

We started playing!  Flatten out the dough, roll, cut with cookie cutters.  I LOVE using my mini mason jars as a cookie cutter or ornament cutter.  It’s the perfect size.



We did need a little bit of flour added to the surface of our cutting board while we played with the dough.  Dab the salt dough onto the flour and cut with a cookie cutter or mason jar.



We made starts and will use them for fun Christmas ornaments.  Kind of like our gingerbread salt dough recipe where we made gingerbread men for a fun garland.



If you make your dough into an ornament, bake on a cookie sheet for 3 hours at 200 degrees Fahrenheit.  Be sure to poke a hole in the dough before baking.  We used a chop stick.

This post is part of the 12 months of sensory dough series

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Grand Old Duke of York Craft

We love our nursery rhyme crafts!  This one is part of a Nursery Rhyme crafts and activities series we hosted with a bunch of our favorite bloggers.  One of our favorite (and it’s hard for my kids to choose favorites when it comes to nursery rhymes…) is The Grand Old Duke of York.  We made this fun craft and kept repeating the nursery rhyme for the rest of the day.  Alllllllll day 😉


The Grand Old Duke of York nursery rhyme craft

This post contains affiliate links.

To make the Grand Old Duke of York craft, you’ll need a few supplies:
red paint

beige card stock 
green card stock 
potato 
black card stock 
glue


We read a favorite from the library, Clare Beaton’s Mother Goose Remembers. This is a FUN nursery rhyme collection.  The pictures are images of embroidery and beautiful.  We check this version of a nursery rhyme collection from the library all. the.time.
I cut a cross shape into the potato to make the stamps look like a soldier’s uniform.
Pour a pile of red paint onto a plate.

Start stamping.

Little Sister (age 3) stamped like crazy.  She was a big fan of stamping that potato!



I cut little circles from the beige card stock to make the faces.  Little Sister glued hers on all over her potato stamps.  Perfect!

Cut little hats from the black card stock and glue them onto the faces.  Cut green grass/hill/field from the green card stock.  Little Sister said hers was a top of a hill and some guys were peeking their faces over the edge of the hill.  I love it!


She drew faces on the men and made a couple of sad faces.  She said they were sad from going up the hill and down the hill again.  Love it again!!

The full nursery rhyme for The Grand Old Duke of York:

Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.



Stop by and see more nursery rhyme crafts and activities on our landing page: 

Boy Scouts Outdoor Play and Activities

Disclosure:  This post was sponsored by The Boy Scouts of America and The Motherhood.  Read our full disclosure here


Kids get a TON of screen time these days.  There’s television shows, bright and crisp movies on the big screen, educational apps at home and at school, music, phone calls with screen images, and toys with screens.  Getting outside to play is SO important with all of the down time that screens allow. Getting moving, getting involved, and getting active are not that easy to do for busy families with hectic schedules.  Families are very busy with work and home schedules. After a full day of school, work, and commute comes homework, dinner (and all that involves), and bedtime routines.  A few hours pass and it’s time for the kids to be tucked into bed for the night.   This daily grind can get tiring and repetitive, especially when indoors and screen time are added into those precious home hours of the day.  


What are busy families to do when all parents are stressed to balance the juggling show of home and work/school responsibilities?


We’re excited to share ideas to make a positive impact on parenting and explore all that the Boy Scouts have to offer in active, adventurous, and life-changing experiences for families.

Getting kids outside with adventures.  Ideas for making time to get outside with the family.  Who needs screen time??


Making Time to Get Outdoors

How do busy families go against the grind of routines, comfort, and schedules and get outside? Try a few of these tips:

  • Plan adventures.  
  • Put it on the schedule.  If the calendar says outdoor time, you’re more likely to do it!
  • Get the kids involved in plan making.  They will be excited for family time and family adventures.
  • Grab the camera!  Go outside, take silly pictures of the family, and the fun starts.
  • Visit new places.  Check out local areas for new-to-you hiking trails, parks, ponds…
  • Join the Scouts for outdoor activities of all kinds of adventures!

Why join the Boy Scouts?

My daughter is part of the Girl Scouts and loves the various activities she’s been able to participate in, so my son knew he wanted to join the Boy Scouts from a very young age.   He’s not quite at the required age yet, but we’ve been looking into the Scouts already.


Parents today are challenged to find the balance of home and work responsibilities.  We are in that boat!  It is stressful to meet the needs of daily schedules while spending quality time with the ones that matter most…family! We feel so rushed every day from the 6 am wake up to breakfast, mess, preparing for the day, meeting the bus, to all of the in-between, the after-school craziness, dinner prep, homework, cleaning up dinner, playing with kids, clean up, baths, bedtime, books, and starting all over again the next day.  I’m tired just thinking about it!  It’s hard to get in the adventures, the memory makers, the life-changing experiences.


With all of the rushing, kids are spending less time outdoors than ever. Studies show that American kids are spending as little as 30 minutes outside each day.  Screens seem to be robbing kids of real-world experiences!


Build An Adventure with the Boy Scouts

Oh boy, we can. not. wait. until Little Guy is old enough to join in on the Boy Scout experiences.  And by we, I mean mostly Little Guy and his dad 😉  They’ve seen and heard about the adventures friends have done…and are more than little excited! Race cars, fishing, camping, rock climbing, bonfires, staying over night in science centers, building box cars…to say the least, my two guys are anxiously awaiting Boy Scouts.

This mama loves the character building, friendships, service projects, and self-confidence building experiences.  I love that these character building activities can be offered to a young age, and encourage kids to get out there and make adventures.
Kids are only little for a short time, but this time is so precious in building values and reinforcing important standards.  Experiences are a great way to build these characteristics in kids.  The Boy Scouts’ “Build An Adventure”  provides innovative activities with a fresh look at Scouting.  Making a positive impact starts young!  Learn more about the inspiring impact the Boy Scouts have with Build An Adventure



Boy Scout adventures can be seen at the Scouting Newsroom.  Little Guy loved watching these videos.  Join in on the Boy Scout fun at www.beascout.org


What kind of adventures does your family get involved in?  We’d love to chat on our Facebook page!

Science and Discovery Activities for Kids

Discovery activities

Watching kids discover through science, art, and creativity is fun!  The learning that happens through discovery is pretty neat to watch.  These ideas have great opportunity for discovery and learning for kids.


Discovery Activities

 

Science and discovery activities for kids

These discovery activities support science, technology, art, engineering, and math, or STEAM! Not only that, but the hands-on activity ideas are great for getting kids involved in project completion from start to finish. 

By participating in these discovery learning activities, kids can challenge themselves in executive functioning skills (planning, prioritization, task completion) as well as social emotional skills such as self-awareness and self-confidence.

Check out these discover and learning ideas for kids:

Explore evaporation with this hands-on science activity.

Discover how to make butter from There’s Just One Mommy.
Discover and learn science in cranberries from Stir the Wonder.

Experiment with air drag and streamlined shapes.
Discover absorption with watercolors on felt from Buggy and Buddy.

Discover STEM with lemon experiments.
Discover colors with sensory bottles from The Kavanaugh Report.

Discover levers and a fulcrum.
Discover geysers from Teach Beside Me.
Discover snowball experiments from us!
Discover polar bear science from us!

 

Exploring Books Through Play is loaded with 50 hands-on exploring and discovering activities based on books! Kids love to explore books and the world around them!

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.