Hundreds chart mystery pictures that copy in black and white

The after-lunch slump in a second grade room is real, and a hundreds chart with a list of numbers to color is the quietest fifteen minutes a teacher gets. By the time the kids have colored 23, 24, 25, 33, 35, 43, 44 and 45 a heart has started to appear, and nobody noticed they were practicing place value.

What the sheet looks like

The mystery picture generator has three formats. The hundreds chart version lists the numbers to color on a 1–100 chart, written as numerals, as tens and ones (4 tens 5 ones) or in expanded form (40 + 5). The color-by-code versions put a math fact or a sight word in every square of a 10×10 grid, with a key saying which answers get which color. Facts can be addition to 20, subtraction within 20, multiplication to 10×10 or mixed add and subtract; words come from the Dolch list or your own.

There are 20 hidden pictures, a heart, star, rocket, butterfly, duck and so on, or pick surprise me. Colors are named in the key, so the sheet photocopies in black and white, and the answer key is a shaded chart.

Why it works

• Finding 67 on a hundreds chart fast means knowing it is in the row of sixties and the column of sevens. That is place value, practiced forty times without anyone writing a definition.
• The tens-and-ones clue style turns every number into a small translation: 5 tens 2 ones, find it, color it.
• In the color-by-code grid the picture only appears if the facts are right. A wrong answer shows up as a stray square, which is self-checking without a key.

Who it suits

First through third grade. Numerals on the hundreds chart suit a first grader still learning to find numbers; expanded form and the multiplication color-by-code are third-grade pages. If the child cannot yet find numbers on a chart at all, the plain hundreds chart with its fill-in versions comes first. The sight word color-by-code is the one for a kid who groans at math.

Print three different pictures for a table of three. Otherwise they copy the shape from a neighbor and skip the numbers.