This past year, one of our focuses in math was to master those addition and subtraction facts within 20. Some days, the recall was instantaneous. And other days, well, it wasn’t! I found it helpful to give my students a plethora of tools they could use to help them gain confidence and master those facts!

I would include these on a rotating basis in a bin they could pull from for independent review, free choice, or when waiting on me to work with them one-on-one. I am going to try something slightly different with our bin system, but they will still include cool tools for math review and mastery.

I rarely if ever pay full price for tools such as these. I am including links to these tools on Amazon, but I would encourage anyone reading to frequent garage sales, thrift shops, and consignment sales, because teaching tools are ALWAYS to be found at these places! Oh and retiring teachers can also be a gold mine of resources; they have certainly blessed me and my students!

I found these Math Wrap-ups at a local consignment sale for school supplies. I have the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division sets. They really do work, and my students enjoy the kinesthetic component of this tool.

I found the Magic Math Machines at our local dollar store for … you guessed it, $1! I bought the addition and subtraction versions and now I wish I had purchased the multiplication and division versions which the store had at the time. They are simple but cool. They don’t require batteries and they don’t make any noise just like the wrap-ups. 🙂 These tools are useful for self-checking as each fact answer is revealed when the student pushes the buttons. You really can’t read the answer until you push it, which makes for a fun activity. Another thing we discovered is that these really help students see the patterns in those basic math facts!

The Math Shark is one of our favorites. Not only does it have options for those basic addition and subtraction facts, but it also covers fractions, decimals and percents. DO NOT purchase this at amazon! It is really overpriced there. I found mine at a local liquidation store for $15. I remember contemplating the purchase, but I knew it retailed for much more at amazon and I really wanted to try it. It is electronic, but it is very basic and can be silenced! Again, we use it for individual review work and for challenges too. The feedback from this is instant, and if the student answer incorrectly the correct answer is displayed along with the original equation so they see the whole equation correctly. I like that feature very much!

This simple tool, Number Dice, goes the distance in our school! I do have on my wish list at amazon some 10-sided number dice. In the meantime, I use other creative ways to get them thinking and challenge them! In this photo below, my student was instructed to add shake the box and add the two numbers together inside it. Then he rolled and added the third die to that number. This could be used with any number of dice and with any type of dice.

Summology is a unique game I picked up at a conference a few years ago. It wasn’t cheap, but to be honest, I loved that the tiles are all wood and the storage case is as well. I also knew the uses are many, and that it isn’t something you could easily replicate. We use it infrequently, but when I put it in a math bin, they get excited to see what equations they can make. It includes tiles for all four of the basic operations, but they are easily pulled since they are white. You can use all of them or just one operation or some of them. Whatever works for your students! You can purchase Summology only at the Simply Fun site or at one of their conference booths.

Last but not least, I am always thinking of new ways to use my Page Protector Printable concept to practice math facts. This Brick Builders Math Pack turned out to be bigger than I had originally planned, and it includes some ELA in addition to the math focuses on math facts within 20, place value to hundreds, and some word problems too! We pull this out on occasion for review and hopefully in the not-too-distant future I’ll be making a Multiplication pack sure to please the brick lovers in your classroom!

For your next stop on the Just the Math Facts Blog Hop, check out Sally’s blog post at Elementary Matters!