Making Pictures Years K - 1

Summary In the kindergarten year (5 year olds) as numbers are studied and looked at carefully it is important children recognise the different ways a number can be organised. This activity is designed to help that exploration and encourage children to move from counting by ones to 'easy ways of counting'. The activity supports the on-going objective of children learning to work like a mathematician by emphasising the multiple ways any number can be modelled. This confidence with 'many ways' is critical to believing that 'I can check this another way.' Suitable for threading and it also likely to be suitable for some children beyond Year 1. A partner activity to this one is Free Play which is designed to be used K-6, especially as way of getting to know a new group of children. Materials One Poly Plug per pair Poly Plug Recording Paper (optional)

Acknowledgement

Procedure The teacher says a number and the children then make a picture of this number by turning plugs in their yellow/blue board. The photo shows how one child made a picture of 18. Discuss the different ways the number is made and encourage recording. Recording can be a drawing in their books or on Poly Plug recording paper. To develop this further the teacher models how to make it easy to check , encouraging counting by 2s, 5s, 10s and perhaps other groups. The children then remake their picture of the number using their red board, showing how to check quickly. A further development encourages children to write their possible number stories, for example: To make 18, I made 2 groups of 5 and 4 groups of 2. or To make 18, I made 1 group of 10 and 1 group of 8. Variation Work with a partner. Player A says the number and Player B makes the picture. Then swap roles.

Content 1:1 correspondence addition facts beyond 10 addition facts to 10 conservation of number counting group (or skip) counting making/recording groups of 10 mathematical conversation recording - written subitising visual and kinaesthetic representation of number writing numerals

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