Learn

Kindergarten
– demonstrate an understanding of numbers, using concrete materials to explore and investigate counting, quantity, and number relationships
– investigate the idea that a number’s position in the counting sequence determines its magnitude (e.g., the quantity is greater when counting forward and less when counting backward)
– investigate some concepts of quantity and equality through identifying and comparing sets with more, fewer, or the same number of objects
-make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects
-demonstrate an understanding of the counting concepts of stable order (i.e., the concept that the counting sequence is always the same – 1 is followed by 2, 2 by 3, and so on) and of order irrelevance (i.e., the concept that the number of objects in a set will be the same regardless of which object is used to begin the counting)

Sample Activity from included Teacher Guide

Warm Up:   3-5 minutes

Take turns walking along the number line saying the numbers as you touch them. Try to help the students to say the number when their feet touch the number and not before. This reinforces one-to-one correspondence.

Walk forwards counting by 1s
Walk backward counting by 1s
Tell them to hop over the number 6 as they walk forward. Change the number e.g., 8.

Grade 1

Relate numbers to the anchors of 5 and 10 (e.g., 7 is 2 more than 5 and 3 less than 10) -compose and decompose numbers up to 20 in a variety of ways, using concrete materials (e.g., 7 can be decomposed using – connecting cubes into 6 and 1, or 5 and 2, or 4 and 3);
count forward by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100, using a variety of tools and strategies (e.g., move with steps; skip count on a number line;
count backward by 1’s from 20 and any number less than 20 (e.g., count backward from 18 to 11), with and without the use of concrete materials and number lines; – count backward from 20 by 2’s and 5’s,

Sample Activity from included Teacher Guide

Warm Up- 2-3 minutes
Take turns walking along the number line saying the numbers as you touch them.
Walk forwards counting by 1s
Walk backward counting by 1s
Hop on the even numbers (2,4,6,8,10) counting as they go forward and backward
Hop on the odd numbers (1,3,5,7,9) counting as they go forward and backward

Grade 3
count forward by 1’s, 2’s, 3’s
count backward by 1’s, 2’s, 3’s

Warm Up: Use with Ladybug Skip Counting by 2 (easy) OR Butterfly Skip Counting by 3 (more challenging)

Materials Needed:
Beanbags or objects to cover numbers.

Students sit along the side of one of the mats so that the numbers are visible. Count by 2s to 30. Count backward by 2s from 30 to 2.
Ask a student to sit on one of the blocks/numbers cover up one of the fish.
Repeat counting together.
Ask a student to cover another number.
Repeat counting together.
Continue covering up the numbers, one at a time, until all numbers are covered. Use beanbags or objects once all the students are seated.
The students should be able to count from memory.

Challenge: “Begin at 4 and count to 26” or “Begin at 28 and count backward by 2s to 14” etc.

Extension:
All students should sit at the base of the skip counting mat.
One child hops on each number while the students are watching (and skip counting silently). When the student stops on a number, hands go up if the rest of the skip counting numbers can be recited. For example, on the Ladybug Skip Counting by 2 mat, a child hops on 2,4,6 and stops on 8. Another student should say “10,12,14,16,18,20”. If the student is correct, they can challenge the group by hopping on the skip counting mat.