Spoon Center

Every summer I like to spend some of my time creating things to add to my centers in the fall.  Here is an idea to make a simple center that has a variety of uses. 

Materials Needed:

A box of plastic spoons

A permanent marker

Baggies for storing the spoons

Let’s say you want to make an alphabet center.  On the scoop section of each spoon you would write a letter.  Students would then put each spoon in ABC order.  You could then have them write the letters or words they made on a sheet of paper.  Here are other reading ideas for using spoons on multiple grade levels.

Reading

• Match upper and lowercase letters
• Make words from the word wall, sight words, or spelling words
• Create words using word family endings on some spoons and beginning sounds on others
• Create words using the first two letters on one spoon and an ending sound on other spoons
• Create sentences with sight words, CVC words and CVCe words written on spoons

Math

• Laying number spoons out in numerical order
• Separating odd and even
•  Using spoons in addition or subtraction problems
• Patterning
• Match number of dots to numeral
•  Place value- pull 3 spoons out of a bag and make the largest or smallest number possible.  This could be done with another student.  For older students you could have them pull out more spoons.
• Multiplication
• Greater than, less than with number spoons and symbols
• Order of operations
• Addition of greater numbers- each student pulls out two spoons that have 3 or 4 digit numbers on them and adds them on a piece of paper.
•  Graphing –place spoons with different shapes drawn on the spoons.  Students will pull out a specified number of spoons and graph the number of each shape.
• Math vocabulary- students will take turns pulling out a spoons and explaining what the math term means.  –addend, subtrahend, product, acute angle, etc.

I liked to use a variety of different color spoons to make the activities more fun for kids.  I had a box labeled “Spoon Centers” where I kept all the baggies of spoon centers.  The outside of the box had a list of all the spoon centers inside.  Each baggie had a label for easy retrieval when I wanted to add a specific center.

I have this as a FREEBIE on my TpT store.  The mats in the freebie are mostly for Pre-K through 2nd grade, but the activities can be done without the freebie mats for higher grade levels.

Have fun making spoon centers!