100 Charts... Improved!

I know the 100th day of school is approaching and that is very exciting, but it’s also a great time to bring up an issue I have:

I have beef with 100 charts. I know, pick your battles right? Well I am choosing this one. 

At one point during one of my extensive training regarding mathmatics there was a brief conversation about how 100 charts would be better written if they started at 0. I wrapped my brain around the idea rather quickly because it really did make sense to me. Typically I am not a proponent of change, but this one was something I could really get behind. After working with struggling math learners the last year and a half I can definitely attest that our “typical” 100 chart is confusing for students who already find the subject confusing to begin with. I am constantly striving to help my students discover the relationships between numbers and be able to make sense out of the patterns, but a lot of this goes out the window when you look at 100 chart and the number 20 and 25 are on two completely separate lines.

It’s such a simple fix, but it just hasn’t been made. All we have to do is regard zero as a number - and it is! But who am I to have an opinion on how every 100 chart has been made in the history of all 100 charts, right?! For the sake of my intervention students it was time to take control of the issue and do what every teacher does: I printed off something someone else created! :) Brittany, my colleague, to be exact. We(she) had been creating the 100 charts for our packets to go to 109 and beyond just to be able to line numbers up like I mentioned above. Within a day I saw a difference with one of my students - it was remarkable! Here’s a photo of the finished product:

My coloring skills are lackluster, but printing in colored ink is something to be avoided at all costs :)

To celebrate this 100 chart that I do NOT have issues with here is a list of ideas of how to use a 100 chart as a teaching tool:

*Connect number identification to number sequence: Have a student find a number and start counting! It’s a simple, yet great review for our Kinders and Firsties.
*Use the 100 charts to notice all of the really great relationships numbers offer:
How numbers change into new decades after a “9” number.
How after every decade number the next number is a “1.”
Counting backwards the number before every decade number has a “9” in it.
The columns all have the same digit in the ones place.
Everything follows a pattern - even how it sounds! Except those tricky teens :)
*Find a colored chip and cover up a number, or two, or three, or an entire row! Point out the counter that you want the child to identify.
*Use a 100 chart to help adding by 10s - Remember to start at numbers other than zero, too!
*Grab a blank one hundred chart and throw it in a sheet protector, write in one column or row and have students identify blank spaces by using the numbers provided to figure it out. 

Thanks for reading my vent session :) If you're in love with this type of 100 chart like we are snag this freebie on our TPT site!

-Lindsey