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One of my yard sale scores this summer was a box of little bats that you stick in the freezer to freeze and then use as ice cubes.
But I had other plans for these jet beauties.
After spying the $1.00 price tag, I offered the yard sale host .25. We met at .50. Which was still a bit high I thought, but I knew I’d use them.
Today I printed off one of these touch dot cards from here.
(To tell you the truth, I really hate touch dot math for typical kids. There is nothing worse than a 4th grader who can’t add unless he counts each spot with his finger. Touch dot can become a crutch that is hard to break. Trust me. It happens. )
Here I’ve taken the cheapie paper plates, placed a black circle of construction paper in the center and topped it off with the touch dot cards.
The object is to place a bat on each touch dot to visually represent it’s value.
After taking these pictures I realized that the black bats needed to be set off better from the black construction paper circle, and so I switched it out with red.
That visual contrast is very important.
Want to take it to the next level? These Numbers-In-A-Jar worksheets will do the trick!
And don’t forget to put that Halloween candy to work by using it to sort, match and graph!
Great activity! You gave me a flash back with those touch math cards. Touch math was all the rage back when I was still teaching public school. I never really cared for it either.
Visiting from Tot School
GG,
Thanks for stopping by! I think the TM will work okay for Parker now, it helps cement the concept of ‘1’ for him. My goal is to use these for now……and then move past them!
Hi Tammy, I’m popping back over from NurtureStore to say hi. I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while now so it was a lovely surprise to get a comment from you today. Thanks for stopping by.
The sample of the dots that you show here were from my very first version of dot math in 1966. I no longer use the dots on top of the numbers because of the problem that you talk about here. I tell other people not to use the dots on top of the numbers. The students and the teachers get hooked on the dots and can’t break away from the use of the dots. This is a big problem. The system you are talking about is NOT dot math. It is called touch math and it has dots and circles on top of the number symbol. Do NOT put the dots on top of the number symbol. Go to the dotmath for kids web site to see how I fixed this problem from 1966, I show how to see the numbers as dice and then convert them to a number symbol by building the number symbol from the dice. This is association of the dice to the number symbol and not bonding the dot to the symbol. I then show how to make every number a calculator. The student can see the numbers that add up to the big numbers as calculator keys. This works for addition and multiplication. For more information use the Google search box to find the dotmath for kids web site. I have a DVD with lesson plans to explain how to teach the dot math the correct way. The other way with dots and circle bonding to the symbol can damage the students ability to do math. I am the worlds leading expert on this as I developed the dotmath system (1966) and wrote the book on how to teach dotmath for kids.
Owen