Subtract & Organize, For Free!

Hey Teacher Peeps!

I feel like I have so many ideas rattling around to blog about that I don't know where to start! I'm happy to have that problem though considering just a few weeks ago I was wondering who stole my mojo! I had the most amazing day yesterday with Debbie Clement of Rainbows Within Reach that I can't wait to tell you all about...but that one has lots of pictures to share, so look for that in a day or two.

In the meantime, I have two freebies to share with you. I just uploaded this new subtraction game to TpT. I've been seeing lots of games that use bottle caps on Pinterest, so naturally I asked my kids to start bringing them in even though I had no earthly idea what I was going to do with them once I got them. Well, I got them. TONS of them. I added them to the collection of Pringles cans, Crystal light containers and juice bottles I just had to have. I figured I ought to actually do something with them before someone turns me into Hoarder Patrol. What I came up with used 22 of the bottle caps and one small peanut butter jar. It barely made a dent in my mountain o'plastic crap, but it's a start. Here's what the game looks like:

Full directions are included in the download, but basically the kids roll dice and subtract their answer from 20. Then they slide a cap with that answer to one of their spots. When I laminated the board, I left a border of laminating film around the edge to make it easier for them to actually slide the caps into their spot on the board. My kids love my Bump games, so their addition fluency is about a trillion times that of subtraction. Time to make Slide a math center fixture. I even made a little label for the jar to hold the caps. 

The 22 caps you'll need to play the game fit perfectly inside this small peanut butter jar. (Call off the allergy police. It's been put through the dishwasher on the sanitize cycle...I think we're good. Plus no life-threatening allergies are in my school at the present time. Which we have had before and it is SUPER scary and we were SUPER careful for her...)

Here's a close up of the extra laminating. I think I'll make a February version too. I've got to use up these collections somehow! Just click {HERE} to download your free copy.

But wait - there's more!

I also found this great sheet on Pinterest and when I tried to access the blog, it's gone! 

Does anyone know what happened to Persnickety Pickle? I was going to share this with you all and direct you to her blog, but seems that's out of the question. It was so simple but actually pretty perfect looking for me. It was one of those things that had me saying, "Why the heck don't I already have something like this?" So since Persnickety is temporarily (I hope!) M.I.A.,  I created my own version. Actually, I created two. One is for readers who don't blog, and one is for my bloggy teacher buds. Not only is it great to keep me on track, it serves as a nice record of when and if I did certain tasks. They're both included in the same download. Click {HERE} for your copy. As always, if you could take a second to leave a rating on TpT, I 'd be super grateful  =D <--you get that that's a big smile right?  Totally random interjection here - Someone I follow on Twitter (ok, it was Danny Gokey...oh shush... he was good!) once tweeted that "lol" looked like a drowning man. Now that's all I see. To be honest =D kind of looks like a sideways coffee cup with steam coming out of it but missing its handle. So maybe I should just ditch the emoticons and "use my words", but it's important to keep up with these things or you might actually expect email and bacon to come out of your AC vents. How cool would that be?

By now I'm guessing you all heard the news that Super Teacher Worksheets is not free anymore. Bummer. I get it from a "business" standpoint. After all, I do have a TPT store. But I think lots of people would have been happy to have a little notice to grab answer keys or print a favorite lesson or two. Hopefully some of the freebies I share will help fill the gaps. My promise to you is that if I ever offer anything for free it will ALWAYS be free, 'cause I'm cool like that.