Relational Thinking to 10, More or Less

May 23, 2018May 21, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, Games, Grades K-2, Magnitude, math, Numeracy, parent supportLeave a comment

Our lives in kindergarten land are immersed in the idea of making 5’s and 10’s. Here is an activity you can do (After playing Make a 10…See previous blog!) to build relational thinking to 10.

Materials: Deck of Card, 3 post-its

Objective: To determine whether two addends (cards) make a sum (total) that is less than, more than, or the same as 10.

Have your student write less than 10 on the first post-it, the same as 10, or just 10 on the second post-it, and more than 10 on the third post-it. (Note: You can also include the symbols <, =, >, but I prefer to work on the concept FIRST then introduce the symbolic notation later.) Place the post-its on a workspace that has lots of room.
Shuffle the cards. Place deck face-down. I typically hold the deck and place two cards face-up for the child, but if students are playing in small groups they take turns taking the top two cards and placing them face-up. The child decides whether the sum is less than 10, the same as 10, or more than 10. If in small group, the others confirm or debate. Once the value is established, the student puts the cars face up as a pair under the correct post-it.
Continue until all cards are used (That is A LOT of addition they are doing!).

Note: I totally stack my deck. I want to make sure some of the first pairs have a variety of sums so that the child (or children) see cards under each post-it. Here are a few of my favorite sets of cards to ‘stack’…

1+2 (I like to start with a known fact and something a lot smaller than 10.)
1+9 (Again, building on the “one more” facts, but this time it is 10.)
3+9 (Relational to 1+9. If 1+9 is 10, then adding more makes more than 10. HUGE!!!!)
10+4 (Any 10+ is great, as students really need to build to 10+ for first and second grade. It is amazing how many children do not see this as immediately more than 10, so it is a great one to have a conversation about!)
2+3 (We have done so many that are greater than 10, nice to go back to a set less than 10.)
5+5 (One of the first known facts for making 10.)
5+8 (Similar to 1+9 above. If 5+5 makes 10, then adding more makes more than 10.)
5+2 (Conversely, if 5+5 makes 10, then adding less makes less than 10.)

Alternative Games for Older Students

Use larger value cards and work less than, equal to, or greater than 20, 50, 100, etc.
Use cards with decimal values and play less than, equal to, or greater than 1.00.
Use cards with fraction values and play less than, equal to, or greater than 1.
Use black and red cards (reds are negative, blacks are positive) and play less than, equal to, or greater than 0.

Game: Making Ten

May 16, 2018May 9, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, Games, Grades K-2, Numeracy, parent support2 Comments

Kindergarten kiddos are immersed in addition and subtraction right now! They are exploring addition as adding more ‘stuff’ and subtraction as taking away (or removing) ‘stuff’. Many of the kids are in their Level 1 Counting All stage in which they rely on counting one-by-one to get the sum or difference.

For example: 3 + 4. A child at this level would count 1, 2, 3 then 1, 2, 3, 4; putting them together, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

This is acceptable for Kinder kiddos! This is awesome! This is the first step! But it isn’t where we want them to stay, particularly at the end of first grade. I tutor some students in grade 1 who haven’t moved past this level. So I took a game that has been around and edited to push kids into Level 2 Counting On.

Make a Ten!

Object: To find as many pairs of cards that add to 10 in your round.

Materials: Cards 0-10 (4 of each). Note: This is the most crucial component. I will talk more about the cards below.

Directions: (Below is a video clip. Sorry about the sniffling; it is allergy season here in TX!)

Shuffle the cards. Lay out 4 rows of 4, face up.
Player 1 finds as many pairs of cards that add up to 10. He takes the cards and (I made them do this!) says, “________ and __________ make 10!” He continues until there are no more cards that pair up to make ten.
Take the remaining cards (if any) and put them back in the pile. Reshuffle and lay out 4 more rows of 4 cards.
Player 2 finds as many pairs of cards that add up to 10. She takes the cards and (I made them do this!) says, “________ and __________ make 10!” She continues until there are no more cards that pair up to make ten.

Continue alternating until there are not enough cards left to play. Player with the most cards wins.

Adaptations

Chris did struggle with 4 + 6 (or 6 + 4). I pulled out a ten frame to help with, “How many more do you need to make 10?”.

Chris refused to have any extra cards. In fact he got quite cheeky about it. This was his modification (he called it a ‘cheat’). I was perfectly fine with it, as I am sure you would be as well! I did not give him the word ‘altogether’ to use; that was a natural piece of the conversation. Woot! Woot!

Card Choices

If you are just starting out, only use 0-5 and make sets of 5. This is foundational and kids do not spend enough time on fact fluency to 5 before jumping in to 10.
The cards I used were from Eureka Math. I love them, as they are friendly shapes and are in sets of 5’s. So 10 is represented as two-fives. This link will get you to the cards I used as well as others they have (like ten-frames) http://eurekamath.didax.com/exclusive-items.html/
If students do not need the symbols (or you are pushing to counting on or fact fluency) I would suggest just write the numbers 0-10 in four colors on index cards. That would be cheap and easy. You could also make your own cards with dots (if they need the dots to count) or ten frame cards this way as well.
You can mix/match as well. Use 2 of each number card 0-10 and 2 sets of each dot or ten-frame card. That way, students have to use counting on for some of the sums.
Another site for cards would be Sumboxes. They have number cards larger than 10 so you can play to other sums (like 20, 50, 100, etc.). They also have fantastic dot cards/ten frame cards together for some great exploration! https://sumboxes.com/collections/types?q=52+Pickup+Card+Decks&page=2

Whatever cards you choose to use, make sure they are appropriate for the level of the learner!!!

Quick Shows With Ten-Frames

April 24, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, Inclusion, math, Numeracy, Pre-K-Grade 11 Comment

I was asked to come in and work with small groups (4-5 students) in Kindergarten today using ten-frames. The teacher wanted students to unitize by 5, 10, and 15, counting on the rest by ones. For example, if I asked a student, “How many do you see? How do you see them?”, she wanted the students to understand that you could find the value in a variety of ways. Here are a few of the anticipated answers she wants them to give by the end of the year:

I counted them all. One, two, …twelve, thirteen, fourteen (Level 1)
I saw two- 5’s, so 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 (Level 2)
I saw a ten, so 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 (Level 2)
I saw 5’s and 1 missing. 5, 10, 15, (counting backwards) 14 (Level 3)

I had a deck of ten- and double ten-frame cards, so I decided to do some “quick shows”. I would show a card to the kids for about 5 seconds, and they had to ‘think’ about their value (versus just shouting out the number). We rotated who gave the value first, but every child had to give the value they thought was on the card. I chose a different student to explain how they got the value, then gave every other student a chance to share their thinking. We did this for about 15 minutes per group of 4-5 students.

Here are our ah-ha’s:

Out of the 4 groups, only one group stayed within the single 10-frame. I was getting answers from this group that were bigger than 10 every time. For example, when I showed them a card with 8 dots, one said 8, one said 12, and the other two were still counting by ones. I quickly drew a double (or triple) 10-frame and grabbed some counters (plastic circle thingies) and would show them their answer, then the original card. That worked for all but one student. For him, I kept on the table the card with the ten-frame filled in, then did the quick show. That clicked for today, but I need to do some hands-on work with this group. I also need to go back to a 5-frame and really focus on 5+ values before moving beyond 10.
Students needed to be convinced that the two cards below each showed a value of 5. Great for starting the discussion about the commutative property! We rotated the card over and over until someone said, “It is just the same thing! You didn’t put more on or take any off. Geez!”

5 different ways

The sequencing of the quick show was instrumental in students building strategies beyond counting one-by-one. The order that seemed to work the best today was as follows: 3, 5, 5 (again, upside down), 4 (to see it was 1 less than 5), 6, 8, 10, 9, 11. Notice we kept them seeing 1 more/less so they could use that strategy as well.
For the groups that could “just see” the ten-frame, I worked up to 20. Here is the order we used with those groups: 3, 5, 5 (upside down), 8, 10, 12, 15, 14, 20, 18. 18 was tough (see the number of dots), as students really needed to push to 5’s versus counting 10 then by ones.
One group finished about 5 minutes early, so we played war. That way, they each had a different card and had to tell me their value before determining who had the most dots. This was interesting, as they had the cards to touch and many reverted back to one-to-one counting. We will need to think about that for next time.

What I loved about this activity was that I had 15 solid minutes to informally assess each child. I heard what they understood and where they struggled. I was able to note for the teacher which cards each child got quickly, and which he/she reverted back to counting by ones (or guessed). Every child was engaged and had to listen to their friends as each shared out their strategy. And most important to me, every child left my group smiling, asking when I was coming back to do more “quick thinking”.

For large ten-frame cards: https://lrt.ednet.ns.ca/PD/BLM/pdf_files/five_and_ten_frames/ten_frames_large_with_dots.pdf

For double ten-frame cards: We made them by cutting/pasting two ten-frames together. I am sure you can buy the cards, but this was cheapest for us.

Cross-Out: Sums to 12

March 21, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, Games, math, Numeracy, parent support, Pre-K-Grade 1, PreK-KLeave a comment

Chris asked for a new game yesterday, and I didn’t have one ready (Gasp!) So we made one up together called “cross-out”. This was quick, easy to organize, and he had fun playing it and ‘cheating’.

Materials: white board, dry-erase marker, two dice (we used dot dice, but you can use number cubes to up the level of thinking)

Objective: We played as a team. The goal is to cross-out every sum when rolling two dice (2-12).

How to Play

Have your child write the numbers 2-12 on the white board. This is great fine-motor practice!
Player 1 rolls the dice and adds up the values. Player 2 crosses out the sum on the board. I rolled a 9, so Chris had to find the 9 and cross it out (see below).
Player 2 rolls the dice and adds up the values. Player 1 crosses out the sum on the board. If a sum is already crossed out, continue rolling (and therefore practicing addition and counting on) until you get a sum that you can cross out. No losing turns here!
Once your team has crossed-out every sum, you won! Do a silly dance to celebrate your success!

Fun Note:
When we only had the 3 to cross-out, Chris asked if we could change dice to be 0-5 instead of 1-6. “Why?” I asked. “So that I have a better chance of rolling a 3! The only way I can get it is with a 1 and a 2 and that’s tough!” If I had the 0-5 dice at my fingertips, I would have totally given in. This is a great statistics insight for such a tiny human!

He rolled a few more times, got sick of rolling and decided to just roll one die. BAM! First roll he got a 3. He was very proud of his ‘cheating’ scheme!

Differentiation Ideas:

Use a number cube and a dot die to work on counting on (Level 2).
Use two number cubes to work on addition rather than one-to-one counting with dots.
Use cubes that have larger values and work on the teens/twenties. I buy square wooden cubes at a hobby/craft shop and use a Sharpie to make whatever dice I want to use. Easy and cheap!
Play against each other. Each person could write 2-12 and see who can cross-out their board first.

Tiny Human Perspectives: What About 0?

March 14, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, math, Numeracy, parent support, PreK-KLeave a comment

What is up with 0? It is nothing, nada, zilch. So why spend time thinking about nothing?

While playing a game with dice (labeled 0-5 each), pre-schoolers had no trouble thinking about zero as nothing.

Student (rolls a 0 and 5): 0 and 5 is still 5!

Me: Why is it 5?

Student (now rolling eyes): Because you added nothing to 5, so it stays 5. You didn’t do anything to it! (Duh…Mrs. M!)

Playing the same game in Kindergarten. Out of 20 students, only 2 (one being my son, since he already struggled with it at home and had made some headway with clarifying what happens when you add 0) students were okay not changing the value of the addend when added to 0. The others added at least one more to their addend, or just sat there and said they lost a turn because they got a 0. ????

Why the struggle?

Students use their instincts when learning. While playing (without formal teaching), the preschoolers made sense of the zero. When you add nothing to a number, it stays the same (AKA Additive Identity Property). However, this ‘sense-making’ was left behind once (I will use my son as the example) Chris started learning addition. He figured out that when you add numbers, the value changes. Every problem he did resulted in a larger value than the two addends. Mama, it gets bigger as you add. When he rolled a 0, he couldn’t make sense of that with his understanding of what addition IS. We had to roll LOTS of 0’s before he finally clicked that adding nothing doesn’t change the other addend.

What Can You Do?

Allow you child to play with a die that has a 0. Allow them to make sense of this new phenomena and open their eyes to new learnings about addition. This will help them later, when adding different kinds of numbers (like negatives) results in smaller sums.

Remember, Zero really is a Hero!

Race to the Top: Kinder Observations

March 8, 2018March 7, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, Games, math, Numeracy, Pre-K-Grade 1Leave a comment

Last week I posted a game called “Race to the Top”. I was able to play the game with all of the students in my son’s kindergarten class. I was one of the stations during center time, and had between 4-6 students each rotation. We kept them 15 min per station, which seemed enough time for their engagement. (One group ran at 20 min and it was too long.) Each person at my station had their game card (see links below for options) and each pair had one number cube (labeled either 0-5, 1-6, or 5-10) and one dot die (1-6 dots).

Here are a few observations and patterns of misunderstandings.

Counting different representations is tough! The students were used to having to ‘add’ (i.e. count one-by-one) two dot dice, but hadn’t yet used a number cube WITH a dot die. When we started to play, at least one in each group said their sum was 2, no matter what was on the dice. This is because there were 2 dice. It only took a few rolls for all of them to get the hang of it.
For this time of year, the 0-5 number cube was too easy (with the exception of 1 pair of students). I would use the 6-10, as most of our misconceptions surfaced once they passed the number 10. Here are the misconceptions after 10.

Example: 9 + 5 dots

Misconception 1 (counted backwards from their number): “9…8, 7, 6, 5, 4.”
Misconception 2 (started counting by 10’s): “9…10, 20, 30, 40.”
Misconception 3 (counted them separately and got stuck): “9 and 5…pause…”
Misconception 4 (wanted to put 14 squares on the game board, not see it as one-14)

After about 2 minutes of playing with me direct instructing, the students were successfully independent, taking turns and excited to see what their value was. In 15 minutes, I was able to watch, assess, and intervene every child in my group several times. They were engaged and excited to be playing. We averaged 18 sums per player in the 15 min, which is a LOT of addition!

Favorite Quotes of the Day

You cheated! You can’t keep rolling until you get your number! (This would have been me as a child!)
Wait. We can’t play anymore? Awe.
I only need two more 12’s to win! You need two more 7’s! It’s a tie! (I get giddy when students do more math than asked!)
Thanks for playing games with us, Chris’ Mom!

Game Board for 0-10 (Change as needed depending on the number choices for your dice)

Race to the Top Game Board

5 Easy Daily Math Ideas

March 7, 2018March 2, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, math, Numeracy, parent support, PreK-52 Comments

I was walking Chris (5 yo) to school yesterday (as we do most days) and was stopped by his Principal. He commented, “You always are counting when you come to school. I wish more parents would do that with their kids.” So it got me thinking; what are some easy-peasy ways parents can support their kiddos with math in the early years? Here are 5 ideas that you could start TODAY! Choose 1 or 2, and use them every day for a few weeks to really see their number sense and mad math skills bloom! Please comment with other ideas as well so we can have a huge vat of fantastic learning opportunities to use with our babes!!!

Counting, Counting, Counting! We do count on the way to school. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. At first, it was to 20, then to 50, and now we are up to 150! We count by 1’s most days, but sometimes we go rogue and count by 10’s (gasp!). Just like singing the alphabet, rote counting is a must to learn numbers. Start with 1’s, then 10’s for Kinders and younger. Move to 2’s, 5’s, 3’s, etc… and you have provided a solid foundation for initial multiplication! Move to counting by 1/2’s, 1/4’s, 1/3’s (you get the idea) and you are rocking initial fractions! Start with a different value that 1 and you are moving mountains!
Counting Forwards AND Backwards: Stairs are great for this. Count up when you go up stairs, down when you go down. Don’t know how many stairs? Start at 20 and count down. If you don’t hit 0, oh well!
I have...: In the produce section of the grocery store, you need 6 potatoes. Ask you tiny human, “I have 2. How many more do I need to have 6?” This is AMAZINGNESS! I cannot tell you how many teachers have students who struggle with missing addend problems. This will help so much!!! Do it at home with the silverware. “We need 4 plates. I have 1. How many more do I need?” The opportunities are endless for this!
Sort! Sort! Sort! Kids can sort the silverware that comes out of the dishwasher (Take out sharp objects first, please!), socks, toys, coins (when you are at a restaurant or doctor’s office), mail, school work, books, buttons, etc. Sorting is super important, as it builds the idea of structure and patterns as well as organizing and classifying information.
Guess my Number: A car-time fav in our family. “I am thinking of a number. It is bigger than 5 and smaller than 10. What is my number?” And you can amp this up for older students as well. Use multiples, even/odd, negative values, fractions, square roots, etc. And once they get the hang of it, each person in the car gets a turn to be the number-chooser. Super easy, and builds magnitude of numbers, place value, and relational thinking.

Race To The Top! Counting On

February 28, 2018February 21, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, Games, math, Numeracy, Pre-K-Grade 1Leave a comment

So my tiny human, Chris, loves to add, but always has to start from one (no matter what the values are). I finally figured out a game to play to push into Level 2: Counting On (see previous blog for more info on the levels of single digit addition/subtraction).

Objective: To get to the top of one of the columns (doesn’t matter which one) first!

Materials: 2- Race to the Top Game Boards (click on link) Race to the Top Game Board 2-dice: Since Chris is working on making sums to 10, I created my dice. You do not have to, but it is super easy and cheap! Go to a hobby store or home improvement store and buy wooden cubes. On the first one, label with the numbers 0-5. On the second one, draw dots on it (like a normal die), but use 0-5. Notice my mad dot-drawing skills!

How to Play: First player rolls the dice. He ‘traps’ the number (in the case above, the 3) and counts on one-by-one if need-be the dots. He puts an object above the sum’s number on the game board. Please view the example. Note the time it takes for Chris to figure it out, but he still gets it. This is tough when children are used to adding with objects and we replace one set of objects with a number!

Notice how he is also doing some mental work with figuring out “how many more” he needs to win the game.

Player 2: Roll dice, count on, and place the object on her game board. Continue until someone reaches the top of a column.

Look at how many addition problems he had to complete to finish the game! He never even noticed all the fantastic work he did! (Insert evil laugh.)

For Differentiation

Level 1 (Counting All): Use dot dice for both instead of one dot and one number cube. That way he is working on his one-to-one counting and adding all together! You can also make a 0-6 page and use 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 dots for each cube.

Level 3: Use both number cubes instead of dots. You could also use number cubes 1-6 and create a game board from 2-12.

Levels For Single-Digit Addition: Where Is Your Child?

February 21, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, math, Numeracy, parent support, Pre-K-Grade 1Leave a comment

‘Tis the season in Kindergarten for learning addition and subtraction. You may wonder where your child is with respect to these foundational operations. Most educators will think about their students’ learning of single digit addition/subtraction as a 3-level progression. I will focus on addition for sake of space.

Level 1: Counting All

This is where most kinders should be. They can even end the year in this level and be awesome! At Counting All, students typically use concrete objects to count one-by-one in order to find the sum. Below is an example, using 2 + 3.

Level 2: Counting On

This is the “trap and keep” idea. The first addend is “trapped” in your mind, and you count on from that value. This is a more sophisticated idea, because you have to understand that the first addend is a quantity of its own, and you are moving forwards from that value (versus starting at 1 every time). Often your child will “trap and keep” the first addend by taking their hand to their head to “trap” it in their mind, then use their fingers to count on. So for 5 + 3, they would “trap the 5” and count on, “siiix….sevennnnn…eighhhht”. This is a level many children live in for quite some time.

Level 3: “Messing with Math!”

That is actually NOT what it’s called, but I like this title much more! This is when children start realizing that there are certain “cheats” that they can use to do more of the math in their head. (Mathematically, they are called properties, but that is for another blog!) I will actually devote an entire set of blogs for this Level, as it is that important. But for now, here is an example using ten-frames with the expression, 9 + 5. 9+5

9+5c Students can see that, if they take one of the five (reds) and move it up with the nine (blues), they can make a 10. 9+5 can be renamed as 10+4=14. This is HUGE for students in terms of flexibility with numbers and algebraic thinking!

Children will ebb and flow between these three levels. The important thing is to play, explore, and play some more! The next few blogs will encourage this through games that I am trying out with my son’s Kinder class!!!

For more information, please visit: https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/documents/mathfw-appendixc.pdf (This is one of the best versions…Go CA Framework Committee!)

For the ten-frames (I love these because they are soft and quiet!): https://www.schoolspecialty.com/magnetic-board-set-1400695

Rolling to 100

February 15, 2018 Jen MoffettAddition, Cardinality, Games, math, Numeracy, parent support, PreK-KLeave a comment

I had the pleasure of volunteering in my son’s Kinder class for 100 day. She had a great ‘filler’ game that I wanted to adapt and share. This is a great one to take to a restaurant where they hand out crayons!

Materials: 100 chart, one per player (see below for link), die (dot for one-to-one correspondence, numbered for numeral recognition with counting), crayons (at least 2)

Objective: To be the first person to color in all 100 numbers!

How to Play

Player 1 rolls the die and colors in that many spaces, starting at 1. Player 2 does the same on his/her gameboard. (Example: rolling a 5)
Player 1 rolls again and, in a different color, colors in that amount. So if I rolled a 2, I would color in the next two squares in a different color. Continue playing until someone reaches 100.

How I would change it

Give your child a blank 100 grid and have him/her fill it in for writing practice. Then use their board to play.
Change out the dice as your child grows in his/her number sense. Using larger numbers will create patterns and encourage counting by larger groups instead of by ones.
We are going to play to 20 and write the addition sentences on a whiteboard. So 5 + 2=7 for the last play. Also you could relate to counting on. Start at ______ move forward ______. I am now at _______. Starting at numbers other than 1 or 0 to count is a BIG DEAL!
We are going to start at 100 (or 20) and go backwards to roll to 0! Counting backwards is just as important as counting forwards!
Find the values. After Chris finishes up his very crumply 100 chart, he is going to guess my number. Example: My number is blue and is bigger than 23 but less than 26. Guess my number!