Counting Bears have been a bear necessity for our home school.
I remember eyeing them in Wal-mart,
waiting for the day I could afford them.
When I found another set at a garage sale,
I was ecstatic.
It felt better than that dream
of picking up money in the streets,
cuz this was real.
Doesn’t take much to make the
Momma of home-teached kids happy,
does it?
I said that on purpose – remember the name of my blog?
Any-hoo, we were trying to learn the
concept of rounding to the nearest ten.
As always, the first time a concept can be introduced,
it can be confusing.
First time mastery brings confidence and enjoyment to any subject.
I pulled out my pile of tricks from overstuffed and underorganized shelves and got to work.
We started with the laminated number line that goes from 1-100.
A small bear was placed on the number 18,
the number we needed to round.
Rebekah had to tell me the two tens her number was between,
in this case 10 and 20.
Large bears were placed on the tens.
If your items aren’t different sizes, you could differentiate with colors.
At a glance, she could tell the 18 was closer to the 20.
(double-click to enlarge and print)
We repeated with different numbers,
emphasizing the rule~
numbers ending in 1-4
are rounded down,
numbers ending in 5-9
are rounded up.
Yep, counting bears
are the bear necessities
of a hOme tEaChEd life.
Found our counting bears … garage sale blessings as well! We love them and continue to use them. Such a joy to meet another homeschoolin' momma, but I must admit, I love your phrase "home teached" all the more.Delighted to meet you today. I hope you don't mind if I splash around a bit to get to know you. This looks like a refreshing place to dip into some serious goodness.Splashin',Sarah
We have the counting bears, also a garage sale treasure!! I remember using them as a grade schooler and my children have enjoyed them as well.Happy Mothers Day sweet bloggy friend!!
Oh MAN, I would LOVE to have a double set like that. I just have a set of the little counting bears. That is a brilliant idea.I really need to focus on making school fun again. We have been trudging through, just trying to check off a few boxes of "did school today" lately. You have encouraged me to try to find my creative teacher juices again!