Elizabeth Martin MTED 517

Drexel University Pre-Student Teaching

October 4, 2017

CHOOSE A NUMBER
Adapted for use in this course from Navigating through Problem Solving and Reasoning, Carole Greenes,
et al, NCTM, 2003.

Further adapted for Mrs. Aimee Porco’s 1st grade class at Vernfield Elementary by Elizabeth Martin.

Kindergarten—Grade 1
Summary
Students explore a variety of representations for numbers.

Goals
✏ Recognize a variety of arrangements for a given quantity

✏ Use a variety of representations to model a number

✏ Represent numbers as sums and differences (extension)

Prior Knowledge
Counting to 30 by ones

Materials
✏ Dr. Suess board book Ten Apples Up on Top (shortened board book version)

✏ Felt board with apples

✏ Ways to Show a Number anchor chart

✏ Individual white boards, markers and erasers

✏ Loose playing cards 2-9

✏ Number house sheets

✏ Drawing supplies (pencils, crayons)

Activity
Engage
Gather students on the carpet and have them sit on their whiteboard supplies that they will need later in
the lesson. Review our lesson objective with the class and write it on the whiteboard as a reminder:

I can show a number in TEN different ways!

Ask students the different ways that they already know how to name a number. Uncover the spaces on
the anchor chart as different methods are named, revealing only those ways that the students recall.
Explain that we are going to learn to name a number TEN different ways and to be thinking about these
ways as the story is read.

Read Dr. Suess’s Ten Apples Up on Top, (board book version). While reading, the teacher will use the
white board and felt apples to visually show the addition of each new apple. Model the addition of a new
apple several times and speak the addition process out loud while adding apples to the felt board. After
several points in the story (3, 6, 8, 10), have the students get out their white boards and engage them in
Write, Flip, Zip. Ask them to show the number in question in one way on their white board; have them
flip; and draw name sticks to share 3-4 ideas.

Explore
Uncover all spaces on the anchor chart and model how we can name 6 using those ten different ways.
Ensure that the students realize that representations such as

1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 +1 = 6 -OR- 2 and 2 and 2 = 6, etc.

Have children sit together with their partner around the room. Let each pair choose a playing card and
then they work together to come up with as many different ways as they can to represent the chosen
number. After several minutes, select a name stick and have that individual and their partner come up
front and share their findings.

Extend
Have the class split up into two groups.

With half the class:

Have students return to their tables. Pass out the Number Family GLYPH worksheets and have children
write down how many people live in their real “Number Family” on their paper. Using that same number,
they are to complete the page, which will demonstrate how well the student understands the equivalency
when naming of a number. Explain that they should show that same number on the die and domino and
then they can add all of the objects to their picture, but that they must be a way to say their unique
Number Family number (i.e. if they have FIVE people in their house, 2 boys + 3 girls = 5 people. Then they
can add 5 trees, draw those 5 people, and decorate their house with die and dominoes representing 5:

or )

Record the children in See Saw and upload to their parent accounts, having them show their work and
point out the number names that they have added to their drawing.

With the other half of the class:

Explain how to play Number Names Top It using the cards and allow them to break off into pairs and
spread out around the room to play for several minutes.

Switch halfway through so that each group gets a chance to play Number Names Top It and to do the
Number Family activity.

Evaluate
 Closure will be brought to the lesson by revisiting our objective that was formulated in the beginning
of the class. Students will talk to neighbor on why or why we did not meet the objective. Then we
will whisper release it and pull popsicle sticks to call on three students to share their opinion.
 We will revisit the anchor chart and count the ways we know how to name a number on our fingers.

Modifications
Modifications can be made for students in the class as follows, when necessary:

Special Education:

 The student who has Down’s Syndrome and is included in the general education classroom can
benefit from working with his 1:1 paraprofessional and in a group with two other peers who can
model the classwork.
 Tactile manipulatives will be used to demonstrate the number names as opposed to producing them
in writing. This includes: dice, dominoes, ten frame magnets to populate, and use of the felt board
with his paraprofessional to visually see objects.
 Continued practice using Play Doh or modeling foam to create his number and letters to spell the
number name will be beneficial to his fine motor development.
 For the Number Family worksheet, manipulatives can be used to represent the trees and family
members and domino and die cards can be selected to represent that same number. He can orally
explain his number family when asked specific questions to answer.
 Students who struggle with fine motor handwriting can have the words and numbers written in
highlighter and these can be traced.
Enrichment:

 Students who require math enrichment will be paired together for groupwork and will be given the
deck of Top-It cards that have higher numbers on them (up to 20). The others will be playing with
1-9.
 They will be challenged to see which other ways they can work names of their Number Family
number into their GLYPH after they have added all of the required items. This may include using
the word, a ten frame, or other names creatively.

Discussion
For a thorough understanding of numbers, students must recognize that different arrangements of the
same quantity are equivalent and that any quantity can be described in many different ways. The ability
to understand and use some of the number principles, such as the commutative, distributive, and
associative principles (young children do NOT need to know these terms); facility with many of the
strategies for mental computation; and—much later—the ability to solve algebraic equations are all
dependent on an understanding of the equivalence of expressions. Any opportunity that you can give
your students to develop numerical flexibility will benefit them in many mathematical situations.