Inspiration from a Fabulous Book: The Queen of Ten!

I have a Master's degree in Elementary Reading and Literacy.  I feel pretty confident in teaching reading and phonics.  Where I lack confidence is in math instruction.  I try my best to make it hands on and to give the students meaningful experiences, but I must confess that I lack some knowledge in the theories of math instruction.  I've purchased several resources lately to try to help me learn to be a better math teacher. 

 And, from time to time, I'll be posting 

freebies I've created through inspiration I gleaned from these books.  Today you get the first freebie! 

Have you met the Queen of Ten?  She's described by Jessica Shumway in her awesome book Number Sense Routines.  

The Queen visits the kids each 10th day of school and has a Ten Wand made of 5 blue and 5 green unifix cubes.  She's very clumsy and always seems to break her wand.  The kiddos have to look at how many cubes are in her hand and figure out how many cubes she dropped, then create a number sentence.  As this routine progresses throughout the year, students gain a great mastery of sums of 10 and an understanding of the commutative property of addition.  I've created several resources to use along with the story of the Queen of Ten.  Since the Queen is not my idea (but the resources were), I've included them as a free download!

 This page is for students to color and record some of the various combinations that make 10 as the Queen breaks her wand.

 Here are some color flashcards to use as you determine various ways to make 10.  You could also have students use unifix cubes to recreate the scenarios on the cards.

 Here is a black and white version for students to make their own Queen of 10 booklet.  Have them color the unifix cubes in all the various ways to make 10.  Each way to make 10 forms a different page for their booklet.

 Students can decorate their own Ten Wand:

 I wrote a catchy little jingle.  Students will color and "break apart" a ten wand to make a sums of 10 scenario.  These would make a great class book. Below that is a sample of a decorated ten wand :

 I hope this pack will help you introduce the Queen of Ten to your class.  And I hope you'll take time to check out Number Sense Routines.  It's a fabulous K-3 resource!

Get your free download here.  Please leave feedback: