Factoring Craftivity!

So I have been on hiatus lately! I apologize for being so absent from the blogging world! 

My husband, cat, and I just moved into a new home! Yay!! I have never been so happy and so tired at the same time! I am sure many of you know the feeling when you move into your first home....great but exhausting!

School has been really great! I am, as usual, in LOVE with my little lovelies :)

They are all so wonderful in every single way! As most of you know from reading earlier, I teach all of the fifth grade Math at my elementary school. This year of being solely math has allowed me to create better activities for the Math we are covering...I have really enjoyed focusing on one major subject.

Recently we starting factoring numbers. The craftivity I use for teaching factor trees and prime factorization (factor strings) is this Factor Tree Craftivity!

This craftivity is something that I use as a whole group lesson, because I really enjoy having the students make many different trees using the numbers available in the packet. They get to cut them out and place them in a factor tree on their tree paper, like in the picture of one of my lovelies below :)

I have done this without the tree backing, and just on their bare desks before...but then the final project of the craftivity is a little bit harder to explain. If you have more time, it is really fun to go outside and grab little sticks to use as the "branches" between numbers in your factor tree (which can be glued on to your final craft).

My cuties completed this project by doing many different factor trees on their desk as I called out different larger numbers. I would call out a larger number, and the students would create the tree on their desk by moving around the pieces to form their tree. We used little pieces of straws as "branches" when we did this in our class.

Then the students get to pick their favorite of the factor trees we created together, or they can create one of their own (and may have to use some of the blank pieces to write a number if they need it for their tree).

Then they get to glue their numbers down and color!

At the bottom of the page, they must write their prime factorization (or factor string), using only their prime numbers :)

Depending on the level of the class, I have them use exponents in their prime factorization. For some, I have not taught them the exponents yet...that will come next week!

The final project :)

Sorry it is not the best quality picture! I have not upgraded to iPhone  yet, haha!

You can see his factor tree for the number 72

From 72, he has 8 x 9

From the 8 he has 4 x 2 and from the 9 he has 3 x 3

From the 4 he has 2 x 2

This leaves all prime numbers, so his prime factorization is 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 3

**This can also be used as a center if you have already taught factor trees in full to your students. This packet comes with the directions you can leave at a center for your students to read**

Center directions:

This Factor Tree Craftivity is part of a larger packet of my favorite Math activities! 

*Check out the Factor Tree Craftivity HERE

*Check out the whole packet HERE

You can also find each individual activity from the packet on my TpT store :)

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In other news...

I also updated my ENTIRE Yearly Binder on TpT! 

I have now added even MORE dividers, as well as binder spine labels for all of the dividers in the packet :) I am super excited about these additions! If you already purchased the item, you can re-download it with the additions from your purchases on TpT :) Yay!

 I promise I will be back to blogging regularly now that I have moved in to my house and gotten internet all set up! Hooorayyy!!!