The Math Monster!!!

Our school has been invaded by monsters!!  Ok, its just one monster, and it is very much loved by my kids.  This creation is used to practice simple math facts.  You place the card with the math fact on it into the mouth of the monster.

 After giving your answer, you let the monster "eat" the problem and then the answer is spit back out of the mouth. 

(The answer was on the back of the card)

When I first introduced the monster, Esther gladly answered the math problems, though her enthusiasm did begin to wane.  But then today, she decided to make her own problems for mom to answer.  Of course that meant she had to write the problems out onto cards, answers and all.  She got a big kick at watching mom counting on her fingers!  But in the end, she practiced adding and didn't even realize it.

Now, before you think that I created this monster all on my own imagination, let me just stop you there.  I am not that creative!  I got the idea out of this book...

40 Easy to Make Math Manipulatives

Every so often scholastic has a sale on their downloadable files, making most of them $1. (I know!  Only $1! Its very hard to contain myself from buying everything.)  Anyway... a while back I downloaded this file.  Sadly, I just tried to find it on Scholastic's site, but couldn't find it.  I did find it on Amazon though in paper form, just click the image above.

This is the first thing I have made out of the book, but it was worth it.  Have you ever seen a kid so excited to do addition?