Fall is one of my favorite times of year! I love incorporating fall-themed activities into all subjects. This candy corn addition bowling is a great way for students to practice addition, and the theme allows it to be used in your math time during Halloween or anytime in the fall. You can use the large bowling set for a whole class activity, but I've also included a way for students to independently practice their addition by using candy corn mini erasers as their pins and a bouncy ball as their bowling ball. Be sure to download the free Bowling Addition printable here.
To set up the bowling area, I taped a piece of Orange Bulletin Board Paper to the wall. I made the "Candy Corn BOWLING" title with the Black Dot-to-Dot Lowercase and Uppercase Letters and then draped the Black Chevron Pennant Banner across the top. For the bowling alley, I laid down a Black Rectangle Vinyl Tablecloth with Flannel Back onto the floor. The flannel backing helped it to not slide around as much.
I set the Fall Bowling Game onto the Black Rectangle Vinyl Tablecloth with Flannel Back so that students could take turns rolling the pumpkin bowling ball that comes with the candy corn bowling pins. These are made out of plastic and are a lot of fun to use!
To practice addition, students get to roll the pumpkin bowling ball two times to try to knock down the candy corn pins. The number of pins they hit the first roll would be the first part and would be written onto the bowling addition recording sheet. Download that free printable here. For example, if they knocked down two pins, they'd write two in the first part of the addition sentence.
Then, they'd roll the pumpkin bowling ball again and the number of pins they knock down the second roll would be the second part and would be written onto their recording sheet. They would add the two numbers together to find the whole. For example, if they knocked down four pins on the second roll, they'd write four in the second part of the addition sentence, which would equal 2+4=6.
Using the Fall Bowling Game works great for the whole group part of your lesson or can be used in small groups too. You could also have students work in partners, where they each get to roll the ball one time and then each have to record the sentence.
You can also adapt this activity for individual practice by having students set up 10 Candy Corn Mini Erasers on their desks and then roll a Bouncy Ball two times to knock over the erasers. You can throw in some extra fun by letting them use Smile Face Candy Corn Pencils to record their addition sentences!
What a fun way to practice addition in the fall!
