Hundreds chart days!

 Last fall we started a 100's chart and counted each day starting at one and adding one (or two) numbers. The little jar is for the "ones column" and the blue tub is for the bundles of tens.  I didn't do it every day with the girls, but we did it enough over all and consistently enough that it worked well.

I sort of stalled for a while in having them finish the chart because I knew I was going to throw a party for us and finally this week I planned for us to do the party and got balloons and so on for it. 

And here is where we are today!  We completed the hundreds chart (sometimes with the girls taking turns counting so that one did odds and the other counted the even numbers.)  Ten bundles of ten sticks.

The girls got to roast marshmallows over the 100 candles while I was blowing up balloons.

Counting marshmallows to help the kids associate the amount with the symbolic representation of the number.  (We did this before lighting the candles actually.)

They were super excited about the marshmallows.

And this is what I was doing while they were roasting marshmallows.  It is a balloon hundred chart!  My 7 year old helped me write the numbers in order on the balloons.  In retrospect I think it would have been better to have each row the same color instead of using all white.  I think the girls were most excited about the balloon animals that I made (not pictured) which don't really match the theme of one hundred, but they DID match our learning about animals.

And I made up a fun hundreds chart game that is sort of a combination of bingo and tic tac toe.  Print out a hundreds chart like THIS one twice.  Use one chart for the "board" and the other one you can cut apart so that you have all the numbers in a box or bowl or something place to draw from.  The kids take turns (unlike bingo) and play onto the same board.  The goal is to get three in a row (or more if you want to make it harder.)  I used my "announcer voice" as I drew a number for each child (put used numbers in the discard pile) and make sure they have differently shaped stickers to use or different colors to cover the number that is called out on their turn.  If they couldn't find the number without looking at what I drew I would just show them.  This is going to be a game we will play again to practice recognizing numbers!

This was the final "game board" after the winning number was drawn for my 5 year old (her squares were on the 13, 14, 15) and like I said, you could easily change it to be 4 or 5 in a row (diagonal, vertical, or horizontal of course.)

So, as we were playing I noticed that it was hard to recognize the 9s from the 6s when I was drawing the numbers AND this board is much prettier, but I don't have color ink in my printer right now.  However, I think this would be a really great way to do it.  There's always the other option of using magnets instead of stickers though so you wouldn't have to print this chart out every time.  I might do something more permanent later like that.  For now, there you go.  :)