ABC and 123: A Learning Collaborative

Here is an activity I do to reinforce skip counting {but you can really use it with anything!}.  I got this inspiration for this activity from Mr. Smith over at Teacher Tipster and it's called Power Towers. You've got to check him out!

Have you ever played stacking cups?  The students stack the cups in a tower and see how fast they can put it up and take it down.  I have made a stacking cups activity that practices skip counting by 10's. 

Supplies:
*Plastic mini cups
*Sharpie

Write the numbers 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 on plastic mini cups {each cup only has one number on it}. I made 24 sets of these, stacked them together and put a rubber band around them to keep them in a stack together. The students put the cups in a row in order:

The rule is that anytime they touch a cup, they HAVE to say the number on it.  You show them how to stack the cups {10, 20, 30, 40 on the bottom} {50, 60, 70 on top of those} {80 and 90 on top of those} {100 at the top}

Then, they take them down by stacking them one inside of the other and they say the numbers backwards now starting with 100.

Then, we have a race:

For more math ideas, check out my "It All Adds Up" posts {here}.

How can you use Power Towers?

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