Christmas Story Mats!

We've been working hard on story problems. My kiddos always have a hard time grasping this concept. But this year I did story mats with them and they have really caught on. The idea comes from a book by Kathy Richardson called "Developing Number Concepts Book 2". Our district gave us the book last year and it has many great ideas.
Anyhow, we've been doing all kinds of story problems using the story mats in the book. I wanted something in my math stations so my firsties won't forget the concepts they've learned. So with the holidays coming up and the fact that it just started to snow outside, I made some Christmas Story mats to put in my math stations. First, I modeled and modeled and modeled. In the beginning, the kids just make up stories using cubes and a story mat. Next, they have a number sentence and have to make up a story using that. Then, I gave them stories that went with the mats and they used the cubes to retell the story and write the number sentence. Finally, they picked a mat and wrote their own stories. We've use them for addition and subtraction. They love it. Click on the pictures for your own PDF. The clipart is Scrappin' Doodle!

I hope someone can use these. It sure has help my kiddos! Have a great weekend!