Sensational Teens

We continue to work on number sense and addition.  These are skills that are imperative for future success.  This week we have put some work on our Montessori inspired shelves and this is one of those activities.
I took foam and drew circles on it.  I ordered the circles in groups of five for automatic recognition instead of counting.  I also took colored glass stones from the dollar tree and wrote numbers on the bottom (I wrote it in reverse so it would be in the correct orientation as you looked through the stone).  I took some scrap paper and wrote the 10+ ___= some number equations.  The last thing I did was make notecards with the number in numeral form and long hand. 

He drew a stone.  The number on the stone was the missing number in the equation.  He would add the stone to ten and find the equation card.  Next he would usually find the matching foam.  Sometimes he did these steps in reverse.  It doesn’t really matter what order.   Next he found  the index card with the number on it.   The last thing he did was write the equations.

He really stuck with this work and it took him a little while to get it done.  We were also tweaking as we went along (this was the first time it had been on the shelves).  Overall I think it was a success and so pretty laying out on the table.