Building Number Sense (Again)

Remember the egg carton ten-frames? I wrote about them here. Well, I planned to use them today to make some more numbers, but Joy had made a comment about 100, and I switched my plans. That's one of the greatest things about homeschooling: I can vary the plans to meet Joy's immediate interests or needs.

We started by taking the stack of 10 ten-frames apart and laying them out on our number line. At first, Joy was counting by ones to find out where each filled ten-frame went. After thirty, she exclaimed, "I know where they go! They go on the red numbers!" I pointed out that the red numbers were the 10s, which made me giggle a little. Joy often identifies things solely by their color (as in "the girl with the red shirt" at church or someplace).

Then I had Joy dump out the ten-frames, one at a time, and place the individual glass pebbles on the number line. This time, she identified them correctly as "ones" right away. A key factor in my knowing that this was a perfect fit for her number sense understanding was when Joy exclaimed, "It's going to end on the thirty!" after placing 21 and 22. She was clearly comprehending the number organization.

Joy was excited every time the glass pebbles ended on the 10s! Then, at 59, there wasn't another pebble. She looked confused for a moment, and then she very purposefully moved herself and the egg cartons to find the missing pebble. She was quite proud that she knew there had to be one hidden.

When done placing all 100 pebbles on the number line, Joy took great pleasure in counting them by ones all the way to 100! (And yes, we usually have school in our pjs!)

By far, the funniest part of this number sense activity was Joy's kitten. Thankfully, he didn't notice all the glass pebbles until we were done, but then he had a grand time chasing them all over the room!