My students are fascinated with race cars, so to capitalize on that idea, I brought some race car inspired ideas into my classroom to engage my students!
My students squealed when I opened the Learning Resources Mini Motor Math Activity Set! They loved the mini cars right away and wanted to know what we would be doing with them. I quickly took everything out of the box and we raced into learning about math! We began by playing a number identification game where I asked a student to place a car on the race track and then tell me what number they parked it next to.
Next, we moved on to creating patterns! My students loved driving the cars into the different patterns that they created. We also tried out an activity we called "Fill the Track". Two students took two different colored cars and a number die. They rolled the die and placed that number of cars on the track. They continued playing until one student had filled their side of the track.
We used the Translucent Pullback Race Cars and the Race Car Birthday Table Runner to play a fun game that helped us review some of our sight words. I wrote some of our sight words on the Table Runner and invited two students to place their Pullback Race Cars at the start line. They pulled back on their cars and let them go racing! The word that their Pullback Race Car landed on or closest to was the word that they practiced reading aloud. Students took their car back to the start line and set their car racing again until they were able to read all the sight words. After they read all the words, they moved their Pullback Race Car to the 1st Place winners circle!
During our reading time, we love to explore environmental print, looking for sight words "in real life"! Using the Car Finger Beams, we highlighted those words in magazines and catalogs and then practiced reading them out loud. This was a student favorite activity and we loved finding sight words on rainy afternoons!
I hope these ideas inspire you to race into learning with your students!
