Dalmatian Addition

This week we are learning about fire safety, and I wanted a way to connect our fire safety unit to the math skill this week, which is addition. Using some sturdy Chinet plates, Word Clip Art, and just a little packing tape--I created what I like to call "fire engine plates"! During small group math instruction, I gave each child in the group a "fire engine plate" and a pile of "dalmatians" (lima beans with black Sharpie polka dots). I asked the kids to put a certain number of dalmatians on the fire hydrant, a certain number on the dog house, and then I had them pull the dalmatians out of the two top pockets and place all of them in the bottom section of the plate onto the fire engine to count the total number of dalmatians. After practicing this a few times, I had the kids write number sentences to go with the dalmatian problems. This turned out to be a great visual to reinforce the concept that addition means to join two numbers! I guess they looked good enough to eat, too--one student asked, "Can we eat 'em?"

**A few other fire safety ideas...**

We covered a large cardboard box with red paper, and made a cool little fire engine! See the little fireman in the window drawn by Bear? Cute.

Dollar Tree had some really cute fire hat cut-outs, so I put fire safety words on them and added the hats to the word wall for the week! (Teachers...they may still have these cut outs! They come in a pack with sheriff badges and construction hats.)