This seven-lesson unit features activities in various modalities in which students work with progressively larger sets containing 10-20 elements. They count the elements, write numerals, and make sets with more or fewer elements. They decompose and compare numbers. Activity sheets, links to Internet resources, discussion questions, suggestions for assessment, and questions for teacher reflection are included. (sw)

This eight-lesson unit features activities in various modalities in which students work with progressively larger sets containing 5-10 elements. They count the elements, write numerals, and make sets with more or fewer elements. They decompose and compare numbers. Activity sheets, links to Internet resources, discussion questions, suggestions for assessment, and questions for teacher reflection are included. (sw)

This lesson focuses on two main ideas: the cardinality of sets with 10 or fewer elements and the identification of buttons by multiple attributes. Students make sets of buttons with the same number of buttons or one more or one less than a given number. They play button bingo to match characteristics of their buttons with characteristics of the bingo caller's button. These activities are motivated by a story from Frog and Toad Are Friends. Activity sheets, questions for students, assessment options, references, and questions for teacher reflection are included. (author/sw)

In this lesson, students make button trains and describe order using vocabulary such as before, after, and between. They describe position using ordinal numbers up to 10. They relate these activities to popular children's songs. Activity sheets, song lyrics, questions for students, assessment options, references, and questions for teacher reflection are included. (author/sw)

This professional resource provides classroom-ready ideas for using the book, Cardinal Numbers, to support mathematics learning in the classroom. The book takes students on a journey through Ohio to count and learn about interesting Ohio gems such as the Goodyear blimp, the Erie Canal, and whistles made in Columbus. Young students can count objects on each page while teachers can read aloud margin notes full of interesting Ohio facts and information. Students will also enjoy looking for the buckeye nuts hidden throughout the book. The book concludes with ten Ohio mathematical problems to solve or think about. The facts, information, and problems will appeal to older students studying Ohio history. Cardinal Numbers, available in many libraries, has illustrations that support counting and learning about Ohio. Teachers can go to the Ohio Resource Center Mathematics Bookshelf to find other outstanding trade books that support mathematics learning in K-12 classrooms. The bookshelf offers teaching ideas, mathematics standards alignment, and a list of related ORC resources for each book. (js)

This interactive, online game features four activities designed to develop students' counting and addition skills. Activities involve counting and identifying how many items or empty spaces are in the ten frame; filling empty spaces with circles, bugs, stars or apples; and dragging items to complete simple addition problems. The four activities can be played individually or scrambled together for an extra challenge. When playing this game, students will be practicing counting, using number facts, and reinforcing mathematical understanding of the number combinations up to ten. (author/js)

This lesson is the first of three multi-topic lessons that focus on activities motivated by mathematically related stories from children's literature. The teacher reads the poem "Shapes" from A Light in the Attic, and students use cutouts or draw shapes to depict the story in the poem. An activity sheet and Internet extensions are included. This resource is adapted from an article that appeared in the May 1993 issue of Arithmetic Teacher. (author/sw)

In this first of four lessons related to triangles, students use multiple cutouts of triangles to form and name other geometric shapes. An activity sheet, solutions, and problem extensions are included. This lesson is adapted from an article that appeared in the November 1993 issue of Arithmetic Teacher. (sw)

Using square tiles, students are first challenged to duplicate rectangles of various dimensions. Students then identify and describe two-dimensional shapes in the classroom. They sort a collection of shapes according to their attributes. After sorting the shapes in different ways, students color the shapes and arrange them to form a picture or pattern. Stories are written to accompany the pictures. Please note that Parts 1, 2, and 3 of It's a Perfect Fit are all included in the same pdf file. ORC cautions that, in Part 3, there is potential for confusion between 3-dimensional objects and 2-dimensional shapes because the figures used to represent 3-dimensional objects look exactly like 2-dimensional shapes, with no indication of the third dimension. In addition to the lesson plan, the site includes ideas for teacher discussion, extensions of the lesson, additional resources, and a discussion of mathematical content. The lesson plan is accompanied by a video clip illustrating lesson procedures. The user should first locate the It's a Perfect Fit, Part 1 lesson and then access the video. (author/sw)

Students learn the names and explore properties of solid geometric shapes. They identify examples of cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders, rectangular prisms, and triangular prisms in the real world and in pictures found on websites. In the pre-activities and the extensions, students use physical models of simple solid shapes. They discuss similarities and differences among the shapes, such as which ones roll and which ones have the same number of vertices, edges, and faces. (author/sw)

In this lesson, students are introduced to geometric shapes through a read-aloud session with a picture book. Using models to learn the names of shapes, students work together and individually to locate shapes in their real-world environment. As a follow-up activity, they practice spelling the names of items and shapes they locate and reflect in writing on the process. This lesson provides opportunities to engage students using many different learning modalities. (author/ncl)

In this book Grandfather Tang tells Little Soo a story about animals, each of which is depicted by a tangram figure. The tangram pieces are outlined in the figures so that students can try to replicate the puzzles. Notes for parents and teachers, as well as a number of lesson extensions, are included. This book is an entry on the Ohio Resource Center Mathematics Bookshelf. (sw)

In this lesson, students are asked to describe, compare, and classify different plants of the same variety according to the number of leaves, height of the plant, and length of the leaves. This lesson is designed to help students understand different ways in which numbers are assigned to objects (by counting or measuring), as well as think about more, less, or equal values. Suggestions for assessment and extensions are included. (author/sw)

Working in pairs, students use multiple copies of nonstandard units (outlines of their own feet) to measure various lengths. They measure the same lengths by counting repetitions of a single unit. They discover and discuss how using different units can lead to different measurements. Activity sheets, discussion questions, options for assessment, and questions for teacher reflection are included. (sw)

Students sort small sets of objects according to rules they decide upon themselves. After class discussion they re-sort the same sets using different rules. Activity sheets, discussion questions, assessment options, and questions for teacher reflection are included. (sw)

Students listen to a counting story and model counting forward and backward with adding and removing blocks on a connecting cube train. They make two trains, compare their lengths, and write subtraction sentences. The resource includes a list of children's counting stories, recording sheets, discussion questions, suggestions for assessment, extensions of the lesson, references, and questions for teacher reflection. (sw)

Students listen to a counting book like Ten Little Rabbits that illustrates counting backwards from ten. They model the actions in the story with counters or links and write the associated subtraction problems both horizontally and vertically. Discussion questions, suggestions for assessment, Internet extensions, questions for teacher reflection, and a bibliography of relevant children's literature books are included. (author/sw)

Students get acquainted with dominoes, count the dots on each half, and write the numerals for the numbers of dots. They then find the sum of the dots on both halves and write the addition sentence to represent the sum. The lesson includes a list of children's counting stories, recording sheets, discussion questions, suggestions for assessment, links to Internet resources, and questions for teacher reflection. (sw)

Students listen to a story and sing a song that refers to subtracting one element at a time from a set of ten elements. They make sets with one more or one less element than a given set. After these counting on and counting back activities, they compare the number of crackers on one plate to the number of crackers on another plate by, one at a time, simultaneously removing a cracker from each plate with each hand until all the crackers on one plate are gone. The remaining crackers are the difference between the number of crackers on the two plates. This activity is a nice transition between the take-away model of subtraction and the comparison model. An activity sheet, Internet links, discussion questions, suggestions for assessment, and questions for teacher reflection are included. (sw)

In this 9-lesson unit, students explore the four models of addition (counting, sets, number line, and balanced equations) using dominoes. They also learn about the order (commutative) property for addition, the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction, and the result of adding 0 (additive identity). Students also write story problems that require addition and begin to memorize the addition facts up to 6+6. Discussion questions, suggestions for assessment, teacher reflections, Internet extensions, and a bibliography of relevant children's literature books are included. (author/sw)

Students listen to a counting book like How Many Snails? that illustrates subtraction. They make up subtraction story problems, model the actions with counters or links, and write the associated subtraction sentences. Discussion questions, suggestions for assessment, questions for teacher reflection, and a bibliography of relevant children's literature books are included. (author/sw)

Students use buttons to find simple sums, fill in a standard addition chart, and write addition sentences. They also explore the commutativity of addition. Activity sheets, questions for students, assessment options, references, and questions for teacher reflection are included. (author/sw)

In this activity, students develop their spatial sense of distance, direction, and turning by using an applet to design a "virtual path" for a ladybug to follow to hide under a leaf. Students then test to see if their path is accurate and, if necessary, revise their solutions. Teachers are advised that Part 2, which uses the same applet to make triangles, may suggest to students that the length of the hypotenuse of most right triangles is a whole number, which of course is true only in special cases. ORC assumes that the point of "Making Triangles" is to give very young students a sense of closed triangular paths, not to teach the Pythagorean Theorem. Nevertheless, ORC recommends only websites that are mathematically excellent, so we endorse Part 1, but recommend caution and some further explanation if using Part 2. (author/sw)