FREE Days in School Tens Frames for in Person or Distance Learning

Calling all Tens Frames lovers! Here is the perfect math activity to add to your morning meeting or math warm up. You can either use this resource for your in person class, distance learning, or both!

I am IN LOVE with Tens Frames because there are so many benefits with using this tool in your classroom. Here are some of the skills that I teach my Kindergarten students using these Days in School Tens Frames that could also work for you if you are an early elementary school teacher:

Subitizing
Decomposing numbers
Adding one more/ or one less and ten more/ ten less
Counting by 1s, 5s and 10s
Counting to 100 and beyond

This post will take you through everything you will need to know about this FREEBIE and all of the pros that come with incorporating tens frames in your daily schedule. So if you’re ready, keep reading!

Using Tens Frames During Your Morning Meeting

I always start off my morning meeting with a greeting, our calendar, a daily schedule and these Days in School Tens Frames. My students LOVE counting with these tens frames… especially when we use our “flashers” to count by 10s.

When Introducing Tens Frames to Your Students...

Explicitly explain what a tens frame is…
- A tens frame is called a tens frame because of its 10 boxes
- We use tens frames to help us count more easily by 1s, 5s and 10s
Talk about how we will add a dot to each box…
- From left to right because that is how we read
- One per day because each dot represents another day we’ve been in school

Questions to ask your students

How many dots should we add today? Why?
How can we count our days in schools? Let’s do it!
In a complete sentence, how many days have we been in school?
If today we have been in school ____ days, tomorrow we will have been in school for how many days?
How many more days do we have until our current tens frame is complete?

Materials for the Printable Version

If you are using this resource in your classroom, then you can print out these tens frames (directions are below) and either laminate them or staple them straight to your bulletin board. Here is a list of materials that you may choose to use:

Dot stickers, markers or fun stickers to fill in the tens frames
White printer paper or white cardstock
Stapler or tape
Laminating sheets or page protectors (Optional so you can reuse these tens frames every year)

I highly recommend that you either use page protectors or laminate these tens frames. It will give you the ability to reuse this activity every year…. Just make sure to use expo markers to make cleanup super easy!

Go Digital with these Tens Frames during Online Distance Learning

Whether your district is starting off the school year with distance learning, going hybrid, or will potentially switch to a virtual classroom platform you may be wondering how to keep some sense of structure and normalcy for your students. This is why I created a resource that can be used either digitally or in the physical classroom.

To use this freebie with your online class, I included dots and seasonal objects in the “BANK” section that you can click and drag to fill in the tens frame. These objects can be copied and pasted to different tens frames based on the particular month or season that you are in.

Easy Google Slides Instructions for this FREE Days in School Tens Frames

If you are new here then you may not know that I am OBSESSED with Google Slides. You will find that all of the resources on this blog are made with Google Slides for a number of reasons…

1. You can create and edit resources on your Google Drive that automatically saves your work. Unlike most editable resources, this one SAVES the changes you make. This means if you edit the Google Slide to add a dot for the Days in School, you can go back into this resource the next day and the dot will still be there… YAY!

2. You can access all of my resources in your Google Slides so you never have to worry about losing or misplacing them.

3. Wherever you are (at home, in school, the library etc.) and whatever device (laptop, PC, Chromebook, Ipad, smartphone, etc.) you can access Google Slides.

4. You can organize all of your files by subject or month and add my resources to whichever folder you see fit.

If you are already familiar with Google Slides, then you can scroll to the bottom of this post and click the rainbow button labeled, “Click Here for FREEBIE,” to access these FREE and Digital and Printable Days in School Tens Frames. However, if you would like a quick step by step of how to use this resource, then keep reading!

Using Google Slides to Access this Free Digital and Printable Morning Meeting Math Activity

After downloading this product you can make a copy for yourself. This is super helpful because you can pick and choose which slides you want in your presentation. For example, you can split this resource into two separate copies… one Google Slide with all of the Digital resources and the other Google Slide with all of the printable resources.

1. Click the rainbow button labeled, “Click Here for FREEBIE.”

2. Once the Google Slide opens in another tab, click on File → Make a Copy → Entire Presentation. Then, click the yellow button, “OK.”

3. Delete any slides that you do not want in the presentation you just made. You can do this by clicking on the slide to highlight it, then then right mouse click and hit Delete.

P.S. – Don’t worry, you have the original downloaded in your Google Drive already so if you accidentally delete a page you can always go back in the original and copy and paste it into the slide.

4. If you are using the printable version, then go ahead and print the page you want (make sure to select landscape in your printing settings) If you would like to use this product digitally, then choose an object from the “BANK” and drag it to the corresponding tens frame space.

The Moment You’ve Been Waiting for… Click Below for these Tens Frames Freebie!

Click below to access this FREE Digital + Printable Morning Meeting Days in School Tens Frames. Read the section above, “Using Google Slides to Access this Free Digital and Printable Morning Meeting Math Activity,” if you need help navigating this resource with Google Slides!