Summer break has come and gone and a new school year is here. Why not start it off with a fun math game. As some of you may know I love looking at pins on Pinterest. In fact, I think teachers should receive professional development credit for pinning educational pins on Pinterest, but that's beside the point. While scouring the millions of ideas out there I came across a math game/resource that used products from my favorite store, Dollar Tree! Of course, it had me at hello, math and Dollar Tree, I was hooked. The original blog post was by Chrissie at the Undercover Classroom Blog. She used the seven day pill box from the Dollar Tree to make a easy place value learning tool. I made my a little different from Chrissie.
So you'll need a $1 pill box from the Dollar Tree, a pair of scissors, duct tape, glue stick, 7 dice, and the free printout label from Chrissie's blog.
Cut out one set of place value labels
Glue a label to the inside of the lids of the pill box starting with millions on the Sunday lid.
Place a die in each compartment. I use 12mm dice that I purchased on Amazon. I found that the regular size dice did not turn as easily.
Next I add a piece of duct tape to one side on the pill box and fold it over the edges. Then I added another piece to the other side and fold it over the edges. You want to cover all sides except where you can see the dice. This is to insure the dice doesn't fall out.
I have the students shake these and work on standard form, expanded form, and written form. I also took measurements of the inside lid and made my own template so I could make some different pill boxes. I've also used the pill boxes to make decimal place value pill boxes and comparing pill boxes.
If you would like to use this activity with your students I have created several different pill box label templates in my teachers pay teachers store, just click on the link below.
