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I love creating hands on centers. Magnets, cookie sheets, and muffin tins are a fun way to do this. The magnets are from the Target Dollar Spot and the cookie sheets and muffin tins are from the Dollar Tree. I was also inspired at the Dollar Tree to make a little freebie for you. I am saving that for last.
The Cookie Sheet Letter matching comes in color and black and white. The color version does match the Target Dollar Spot Magnets. There is an uppercase version and a lower case version. One set is in alphabetical order and three sets are out of order. You can have students match uppercase to uppercase, lowercase to lower case, or uppercase to lowercase.
The Math Cookie Sheets came out adorable, right??? To make the magnets in the build a ten frame, I used scrapbook paper, circle magnets, a circle hole punch and hot glue.The circles are slightly larger then the magnet because that was the size hole punch I had. I will let you know how they hold up. I know you can peel hot glue off of magnets, so they should be easy to fix.
Although these are designed to got with magnets, image all of the ways you can use these….letter tiles, letter beads, or font sort cards. If you have letter object tubs, you could even sort the objects into the letter tins.
Again, you can use magnets or you can have students count out objects and out them in there!!! Great use for the Target Erasers! There is also a set of cards with stars on them. Students count the stars and put that number in the tin.
I put all of these activities in order, but you could mix them up so they are not in order.
Here is the first of TWO freebies. I created this to store letters for word work activities. I was thinking of my Read It, Build It, Write It sight word activity. I hate pulling out the individual letters every week for sight words. If I set this up now, it can be used ALL YEAR LONG! There are several double letters, too. This would also work for name building activities, beginning sounds, or cvc word work. You can get this FREE HERE.
Finally, I made this FREE Push Pin Activity for Beginning Sounds. You can get the emailed to you by signing up for my email list. You can join my email list here. When I was at The Dollar Tree, I saw these individual cork boards. I have seen different push pin activities all over the place. It is supposed to be great for fine motor. I am a little worried about pricked fingers and lost pins, but I am going to give it a try. If it doesn’t work, I will just use these as traceable letters.
I hope these activities help you to get started with your centers this year!
