Flip the 5 & 10 Frames

Inventions are born out of necessity or maybe out of frustration and clutter.  As a teacher you can probably get a good visual when I describe this scenario.  I was in my living room creating a new project working with 5 and 10 frames to help one of my friends who teaches first grade.  I spent many hours creating it, printing it, and wait for it - laminating and cutting it too.  So there I was sitting in the middle of the floor with laminating strips, scissors, and center pieces everywhere.  Teaching and creating is such a messy job sometimes, isn't it?  How many of you have a dining room table that does not have teaching materials on it? It's Friday.  How many of you brought home a teacher's bag full of things to make or do over the weekend? OK- back to my story.

My friend dropped by to pick up what I had made for her before I had it all sorted into centers.  Enter my friend: Picture all of the apple games, books, literacy centers, apple math cards, apple ten frames, and apple math centers on the floor, couch, chairs, coffee table . . . Are you getting the visual?  It was a sea of red, yellow, and green all over the floor.  Now if you have a partner in crime that shares your passion of creating fun hands on activities for kiddos, then it is ok for that teacher to walk in and see the mess.  Whew, I'm sure glad it was Stacee.  She stepped over all of the mess, and we got to work planning for her students.  When she left, I looked around at the remnants that were left, and an idea just hit me.  I found a way to make 5 & 10 frames that would flip over so there is no need for all of the pieces.  I made 5 in the color version for math stations and 5 for small group.  They come in both 5 & 10 frames so I can different according to a student's or group's needs. Here is the end product.

Once I made the apple ones I just kept going through the themes, holidays, and autumn season. I even went back to the first of the year.  Now I have 5 & 10 frame cards for all of the themes for the first semester of school ready to go and stacked neatly with a rubber band wrapped around each set.  They can be stored in a large baggie or in a small tub.  And you can print the black & white versions for each student in your class to manipulate during whole group time.  Picture everyone participating in the hands on learning. Think of all the math language and discussion as they compare their frames.

Here is a picture of the sample frames in my new packet on Teachers Pay Teachers.  It has 590 pages in it!  That is my biggest packet so far!  I put in at a discount price through this weekend.  CLICK HERE to see it on TpT.

Choose from these pictures for the Give-a-Way at the bottom of the blog.

If you made it this far down to the end of my long post, then here is the exciting news!  I am giving 2 away here along with 2 more on my Face Book page (Click Here).  I had my daughter choose one of the pictures (themes) from the sample shown above.  Here is how you can enter.  Follow my blog and/or my Face Book page.  Then leave your guess as to which theme picture my daughter chose as the secret winner.  Also leave your email address.  This is a HUGE file, so it might be best to leave an email that would not be blocked.  Some school email addresses block large files. You may make one guess on my blog and one on my Face Book page.  Good luck!  I will notify the winners as soon as the secret pictures are named.  So which picture do you think my daughter picked?  An animal? A holiday pic? Another theme?  Shhhh . . . it's a secret!