Repurposing Kid Blocks

Teachers are famous for repurposing items right?!?!  I can remember as a kid my mom collecting film canisters for a Mother’s Day project or egg crates for a caterpillar art project.  Our minds go crazy when we get an idea – you know what I’m talking about – don’t pretend you don’t.  :o)

But seriously I saw these bad boys at Target with my hubby and said, ” Tell Santa I need those in my stocking.”  He doesn’t even ask anymore after 20 years of marriage.  He just makes a mental note and looky I got them.

So ~ as I said we find ways to use items to make a lesson or center fun and engaging.  So when I thought about the different ways these can be put together I started thinking about math.

My mind was fluttering with place value, multiplication, addition, coins and more.  Here is what I’ve come up with so far…

This is great because it can be used with the 4 puzzle blocks, all the way down to the 2 puzzle blocks.  Great for differentiation! 

Use them for tens and ones for your firsties or second graders, practice fractions or multiplication.  My third graders would LOVE building these block puzzles with their multiplication facts.  It would be a perfect rainy day project and I think it’s an El Nino year…fun and engaging don’t you think?!?

Why not create them for counting coins, expanded form or equations.  As you can see I used multiplication again since I teach third but you could use addition, subtraction and division easily.

I hope I got your mind thinking about all the fun ways these can be used for math.  Head out to Target or Walmart today, I was thinking of hitting up a gently used kids store as well.  I have more ideas I want to use and am running out of blocks.  Be creative with it and see how you can meet the needs of your students.  Good luck and let me know of some ideas I forgot in the comments.

Happy Teaching!