As a warm up activity, the students enjoy calling out numbers as I flash dot plates to them and they try to recognize the number of dots immediately. At the beginning of the year when we first began this exercise, there were many nodding heads or pointing fingers on the carpet as some students slowly counted to themselves, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5..." Now, in March, students are doing some amazing mental math and recognizing numbers immediately!
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| "5! I see 4 dots and 1 more!" |
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| "That's 3! 1 grey and 2 black!" |
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| "4 dots and 4 dots is 8!" |
NS1.6 recognize some quantities without having to count, using a variety of tools (e.g., dominoes, dot plates, dice, number of fingers) or strategies (e.g., composing or decomposing numbers, subitizing)
Shake and Spill has also been a popular game we like to play! In partners, students shake double sided counters in a cup and spill them onto the table. We record what our spill was on our recording sheet with red and yellow crayons. At the end of the game we are able to see all of the different combinations of red and yellow one number can have!
After we shake and spill, we say a sentence to describe our spill. For example, (see top right) "I have 6 dots. I have 2 yellow dots and 4 red dots."
NS1.11 - investigate and develop strategies for composing and decomposing quantities to 10 (e.g., use manipulatives or “shake and spill” activities)
