King of the Numbers

I'm linking up with Kayla from K's Classroom Kreations and Theresa from Theresa's Teaching Tidbits for September's Math Tip Monday!

This month's theme is number sense. I would like to share a game I played when I taught kindergarten called 'King of the Numbers'. It is a very simple game I made up to help the children learn to count to 100. It was very effective and the kindergarteners loved it!

I placed a chair at the front of the group sitting on the rug and I would have the children take turns sitting in the chair and count 1-100 without making a mistake. For example: The first child might count to 35 without making a mistake. He would get to wear a crown, be king, and stay in the chair until someone beat him. Each child would get a turn. If a child didn't beat the king he would sit back down. If a child counted higher without making a mistake he would get to steal the crown and sit in the chair. He was now the king. I kept a list of my class names in a notebook and I would jot down how far they counted without a mistake each day so I could see the progress. When a child could count all the way to 100 without making any mistakes they were the ultimate king! They received a paper crown on the wall that had their name on it. The kids really wanted to get that crown on the wall! Once a child gets the ultimate king they no longer play the game. They only observe. The game gets faster as more children get ultimate king because there are less players. Every single kindergartener in my class made ultimate king. 

Things to know:

1) The king of the numbers wore his crown all day (except to PE).

2) The crown I used was actually a Halloween costume crown made out of fabric so it was durable. (I took it home and washed it and sprayed it with Lysol a lot!)

3) Sometimes there was a tie that day. If that happened both students sat in the chair together. If they were both king they would take turns wearing the crown for the day.

4) The paper crown was a printout of a crown I found on the internet. I printed it on colored paper and the children chose their color when they made ultimate king.

I played this game for all three years I taught kindergarten and the kids loved it and most importantly it worked!

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