A Quick FREE Common Core Reindeer Game for Combinations of 5

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Last week, I wrote about the reindeer themed subtracting from 10 game I made for my first and second graders.  It is free and available here!

Anyways, I had just played this reindeer game with some first and second graders and went to grab a group of Kindergarten kids.  When we got to my room, they immediately noticed the reindeer counters out on the table and they were VERY INTERESTED.

My goal for the day had been to work on combinations of 5 and this Common Core standard
CCSS.Math.Content.K.OA.A.3 Decompose numbers less than or equal to 10 into pairs in more than one way, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each decomposition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 5 = 2 + 3 and 5 = 4 + 1).

I was going to play a game similar to this one but quickly made a few changes to we could play it with reindeer.

The reindeer counters from this game have a picture of a reindeer on one side and are blank on the other so we used them like 2 sided counters.

Students put 5 reindeer counters into a paper cup, gave it a shake and dumped it out.  They sorted into reindeer up and reindeer hiding.  They then wrote an equation to show how many reindeer they could see and how many were hiding. 

A student writes an equation to match how her counters landed.  We just made our own record sheets on white boards.  I already had the reindeer counters prepared from another game so this game required no prep work.  My favorite kind!

At this point the student noticed that 1 + 4 = 4 + 1.  Gotta love when a simple game brings out the big ideas of mathematics.  

This game would also work for combinations of 10 and 20.  Want to try it with your students.  Head over here and print out the reindeer counters.  FREE!