Cha-ching! A Subtraction Wonder!

We have been hard at work the past days with subtraction.  Let me tell you, subtraction is a hit or miss kind of skill in our little owl filled room.  Yesterday, the skill was going in one ear and making a mad dash out the other.  Today, totally different story! 

I have a feeling the shift had something to do with my basket of plastic food that made its appearance during math.  I was making my weekly run to Wal-mart and came across this great basket of plastic food for $10 and knew it was going to come in handy.  I brought it home and right away began writing various prices on the food.  We were going to review money (pennies) and subtraction all in the same lesson.  Bonus points for me!   

Here is how the lesson went down today!  Each owl got a baggie with 10 pennies inside.  Side note the baggies became wallets for the boys and purses for the girls because we were shopping.  :)  Each also got a piggy bank mat for the counting of pennies step.  We took turns buying different foods, taking away pennies, and figuring out how much we still had left to spend.  After I felt the owls had a good handle on this, we broke into table groups and started working together in a smaller group setting.  I also included a recording page at this time. 

 

 

 

 

I have a feeling that if we had an hour to spare in the day, they would have shopped and subtracted until they dropped.  What a fun activity for them!

 

~Erin