Composing and Decomposing Numbers

This week, we worked on composing and decomposing numbers. We spilled beans and talked about more and less, parts and whole, and number combinations. We made towers of 10 cubes. Then we broke them and looked for patterns, added cubes back to make 10 again, and recorded the data from our combinations. Throughout the week, we used lots of "number talk" to understand what we were doing. We asked and answered important questions like:

How many of your counters are red?
Do you have the same number of white counters as your neighbor?
How many counters do you have all together?
How are your recordings different from your neighbor?
Which tower has the least amount of cubes? which has the most?
How many more cubes do you need to add to the tower with the fewest cubes in order to make 10 again?
How did you find your answer?
To make 10 again, did you add cubes or take them away?
How many parts do you have?
What do we call the tower of 10 when it is all together?

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Pattern Blocks and Atrribute Blocks, Oh My!

Attribute blocks are math manipulatives that have four different features:

* shape
* color
* size
* thickness

The four shapes are circles, hexagons, squares, and triangles. The three colors are red, blue, and yellow. The two sizes are big and small. The two thicknesses are thick and thin. Attribute blocks are a good introduction to logical thinking for young learners.

Pattern blocks come in 6 colors and shapes - yellow hexagons, green triangles, blue diamond shaped rhombus, red trapezoids, orange squares and a smaller beige rhombus.

Using pattern blocks when teaching math not only develops math vocabulary but also helps children understand many other math concepts such as symmetry, order, counting, number operations, data collection, and estimation.