What can you do after your holiday party?

I don't know if parents come to y'all's parties but they do at my school. If you're lucky when the party is over they take their darlings home with them. So what do you do with students who stay for the remainder of the day? I have a GREAT solution! Addition wheel races!

A couple weeks back I saw Ginger Snaps post on multiplication wheels which I had COMPLETELY forgotten about. I did multiplication wheel races with my third graders back in the day and we had a blast. I made addition wheels today for my students. If you aren't familiar with them here's how they work: Draw a donut shape and place numbers around the inside. Then place another number in the center. Students line up and take turn adding the number inside the donut hole with the center number. They place their answer outside the circle.

 After a student writes down an answer they pass their expo marker to the person behind them and go to the end of the line. Now, if I have a student writes down an incorrect answer someone else in the line has to fix it. They simply cross of the wrong answer and write the correct answer next to it. When we race I usually have only three or four students in a line. Students are NOT allowed to whisper or call out an answer or let another student know their answer was wrong. As soon as all of the answers are written down and correct that group wins. I don't write the same numbers in each wheel when we race because I don't want anyone stealing answers. It's a great way to get students to practice addition facts.

I drew snowmen on my whiteboard today and made the bottom snowball the addition wheel. We had so much fun!

*notice the wrong answer!

*If you don't have a whiteboard you can laminate some butcher paper or poster paper and cut out your wheel and use dry erase markers to write. We are going to practice some more tomorrow and race with some of our neighbor first grade teachers on Friday after our 8 am party. (Yeah, pray for me!)