Monday, November 14, 2011

Fact Family Houses

I had been working with my Curly Girlie on her addition and subtraction facts.  I really wanted her to see the connection between addition and subtraction - how it's the same numbers, just switched around.  And then it popped into my head today - Fact Family Houses!

These are not a new idea.  But they are simple to pull together in a moment's notice.  And certainly more fun than another worksheet or another run with the flashcards!

The kids were busily working on their seatwork when the idea struck. So I grabbed a stack of construction paper and my paper cutter and began cutting.  Here is what I did today to create these cute Fact Family Houses for my Curly Girlie to put together:



1. I cut several 6 inch squares.  I set some aside to be the houses and others I cut again - diagonally - for the roofs. 

2. I used some of my scraps to cut small one inch squares for the numbers.

3. I laid them out so I could write the plus, minus and equal signs onto the houses.  I thought this would offer her some guidelines for spacing things out evenly, as well as show her how many facts she needed per house.

4. Then I chose the fact families that I wanted her to work on.  I wrote the three numbers on one of the roofs and I wrote the numbers again on the 1 inch squares making sure I had one for each fact.






Here she is hard at work building one of her Fact Family Houses! 

And here she is with 3 of her houses complete - in no time!  She loved it!!!  I hung them on our window, so she can review them often.  I really think a connection is already starting! 

Sometimes I'm too quick to pass off an opportunity to do something different because I didn't have time to prepare it in advance.  That's why I really had to share this one right away!  It really was so simple to throw together and well worth it! 
Have fun building your own Fact Family Houses!


Classified: Mom
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12 comments:

  1. What a cute idea! And such a practical way to help you kiddo with math =-) THanks for sharing it on TGIF. I look forwad to seeing what you link up next week!!
    Beth =-)

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  2. I love this idea. I will definitely try this with my daughter.

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  3. these are so fun! I used to do them with my 2nd graders and they always enjoyed it. thanks for sharing on the sunday showcase - I shared on facebook & twitter and pinned it onto pinterest

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  4. WOW! I've never seen anything like this before. What a great idea! I am definitely going to try this with my son. Thanks for sharing!
    Shawn

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  5. doing this with my first graders :) We're going to make them into Gingerbread Houses!

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  6. My little 1st grader is going to love this!!!

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  7. Just found your blog and love it. Thanks for the resources! I'm a new follower!
    ~Andrea
    www.nodoubtlearning.blogspot.com

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    1. Thank you, Andrea! So glad to have you following!
      (Love your name!)

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  8. What a great idea! Thanks for sharing!

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  9. This is wonderful! Love using arts and crafts to teach. Using it to review Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Thank you!!!

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    1. Thank you! We recently were playing around with putting magnets in the backs and doing it all on cookie sheets for a kind of mix and match activity! Maybe I'll post that idea soon! Hope you enjoy!

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