Hunt for the Black Cats
Grade Levels: 1 - 3
Objectives
Students will practice their addition skills.
Materials
- Paper
- A drawing of ten cats on one sheet of paper with a number (0 through 9) on each cat (see below).
- Pencils
Procedures
- Make nine or ten copies of the page of cats (enlarge if necessary).
- Cut the cats apart in rectangular pieces of paper.
- When the students are out of the room, hide these cats throughout the classroom.
- Distribute one piece of paper and a pencil to each student.
- Show students a sample of the paper cats that are hidden around the room and tell them that today's math lesson is a cat hunt.
- At a signal, have the children search the classroom for cats. Allow 5-10 minutes for this.
- Sound the signal and ask students to return to their desks. Have the students write down the numbers they found in a column on a piece of paper.
- Instruct each student to add up all the numbers on the cats they found.
- Let the child with the highest number come up to the chalkboard and write the numbers of each child's total cats in a long column on the board.
- Discuss how to reach a grand total.
- Have children attempt to find the sum of everyone's cats.
- Calculate the total as a group and ask students to check their work against the correct answer.
Excerpted from The Complete Teacher's Almanack: A Daily Guide to All 12 Months of the Year by Dana Newman.
