I Need Your Help - Help me out and I'll give you a gumball (or two...or three...)

Well, I only got one comment on the ice cream spoons yesterday, and that was a "toss", so those are going in the trash tomorrow! I just couldn't go to work in my classroom today. After taking the kids to Grandma's, grocery shopping...I just didn't feel like it! I will be getting up early to go tomorrow, though! I will post pictures of the progress tomorrow. Here's the next item in the keep/toss game:

This was originally created to be a graphing display. Each first grade class was collecting canned goods for the local food pantry. When the students brought in a canned good, they got a little can to color. Those were posted in the "counting cupboard" so that the students could keep track of which class had brought in the most canned goods (my class won, by the way!). Anyway, it was lovingly created by my homeroom mom (and favorite sub)and I'm thinking it might be a fun math center, but I'm not sure how to use it. I'm hoping you guys will be able to help me with ideas/activities. If not, it's going in the trash (which would kill me, because I know there's potential there!). So, come on guys, let's get those creative juices flowing!

Now, onto the gumballs... I was thinking about things that I could use in literacy stations that would give the kids a chance to read their weekly basal story.  I want to use more trade books/literature this year rather than spend the whole week on our basal story.  Now, my original thought was to take a real gumball machine and find small rubber bouncy balls that would be the same size as the gumballs.  I'm hoping that they would work in the gumball machine just like the gumballs would.  Anyway, I was going to write a sight word on each ball, then put them in the machine.  The kids would turn the handle to get a "gumball", read the sight word on it, then use the recording sheet to tally how many times the word appeared in their weekly basal story.  Now, I don't have a gumball machine (or a large supply of bouncy balls) right now, so I'll have to wait until I start getting paid again (I've spent all my summer money) to try the real thing.  If you're in the same boat as I am, I created this version with paper gumballs.  Just cut out and glue the large gumball machine onto a brown bag, then cut out the gumballs and place in the bag.  Students can grab a gumball out of the bag and use the recording sheet to tally.  I've uploaded this as a word document in my TpT store, so you should be able to change the words if needed. The words here are based on the Florida Treasures reading series.  I'm going to work on creating paper gumballs for the other stories in the series - I'll let you know when I get them done.  If you happen to try the bouncy balls in a real gumball machine, let me know how it works!

Gumball Sight Word game - Set 1

                ***If anyone knows how to embed a picture from TpT on blogger, please let me know!  I wanted to put a picture here, but couldn't figure it out!

**UPDATE:  I just found a cute gumball printable at Mrs. I's Class.  You could use this one just like the one I made, but write and tally in the gumball.  Go to her site and check it out!