Number Elimination Riddles Freebie!

Hi, Teaching Friends!

Do you like solving riddles? Give this one a try!

I love solving and creating number elimination riddles! They're a great teaching tool for so many reasons!

* They're a great way to review math concepts. Look at the example above ... you'll see comparing numbers, comparison signs, subtraction, counting coins, and odd/even, all in one riddle. Ah, I do love to hit multiple objectives all in one swing of the bat! 

* Use them to teach your students how to draw conclusions by eliminating the choices that aren't possible. Modeling how to solve an elimination riddle brings lots of opportunities for higher order thinking skills. Try a turn-and-talk with your students, and eavesdrop to get a good snapshot of their understanding of both the solving process and the math concepts.  

* Riddles are so much fun that they'll keep your students happily engaged. I'll bet you stuck with it and solved all the clues on the riddle above, right? ;)

How can you use math riddles with your class?

* Solve one a day at calendar time with the whole class.

* Use them as a warm-up before a math lesson.

* Use them as task cards in a math center.

* Set them up around your classroom for a Read the Room activity.

* Use them as challenge work for early finishers.

* When your students get really good at solving riddles and can handle the pressure of finding the solution quickly, use riddle cards for a game of Scoot.

* They're a great sponge activity for those few extra moments {that you so seldom have, I know... :) }

Would you like to try some free number elimination riddles with your class? I've put together a sample pack with riddles from six different sets from my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Let's take a closer look at a few number elimination riddle cards. This one is from "Buzzing Around One Hundred".  The clues focus on the numbers surrounding 100, making it a fun choice for 100th Day math.

Here's another, a bit more challenging. It's from The Lovebug's Secret Numbers.

Would you like to try some free number elimination riddles with your class? I've put together a sample pack for you that includes 17 riddle cards drawn from six different sets in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Click here or on the cover to download your free set!

Math skills used in solving the riddles in this free set include addition, subtraction, place value, coins, comparison signs, adding and subtracting ten and multiples of ten, odd/even, and measurement. It's very cool to watch your students' reasoning ability grow with repeated use of this kind of riddle.

If your students (or you!) fall in love with solving number riddles, you'll find links to the complete sets in the download, or you can see them in the "Riddles" category at my store.  Each of the complete sets includes an answer key and a student recording page.

I hope you and your student will enjoy using these number elimination riddles. I'd love to hear your ideas for using them!

Happy Teaching!

Riddles for Math

Hi, Teaching Friends!

This is my first post on iTeachFirst - I'm glad to be here, and so happy that you stopped by today! I'm a retired teacher from NJ who (as expected!) found it just too hard to simply walk away from teaching! After 26 years of teaching (first grade, Reading Recovery, Basic Skills K-8), I'm now having a great time creating new classroom resources, blogging, and staying in touch with the world of primary classrooms that I love! It's a delight and a privilege to be able help teachers and their students around the world!

After all those years teaching I can say for sure, and I think you'll agree - nobody in any other job gets to laugh as much as first grade teachers do in a day at work!  A good part of that, of course, is the fact that our little guys are so cute, sincere, lovable, literal, and more. But I think a lot of the laughter comes from the fact that firsties are always ready for a good time. No matter what you're doing, if you call it a game, to them it becomes a game!

I think that's one of the reasons that I got started creating riddle sets. Riddles are fun!  Of course, they're also great for teaching inference, using key details, solidifying concepts and vocabulary... but to our kiddos, they're Fun with a Capital F!

Teaching our students to sort through clues, to come up with possible answers, discard those that don't fit, and continue the process of integrating the new information at each step ... all of this is higher order thinking for them! But since they see it as a game, they beg to do more. "Well ......, if you really want to, sure we can do some more!"  :)  If you're happy and you know it, solve a riddle!

I have a lot of riddles in my TpT store. You can see them all here. But today I want to share with you a free set of riddles that you won't find there.

One of my most popular resources is a set of math riddles. It includes a riddle for every number from one to 100, making this set very useful for calendar activities like counting the days of school. It's also fun for the 100th Day!

So, your freebie for this Sample Sunday is ... just to give you a little taste of the big set ... this brand-new sample set of a dozen riddles! 

Here's a close-up of one of the twelve riddle cards in this set. You can see how the possibilities narrow with each clue that's given, and how these riddles will really keep your little learners thinking as they consider and discard possible answers right down to the very last clue.
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I hope you'll enjoy using them! 

Thanks for stopping by iTeachFirst ... Happy Teaching!