Prep Bulletin

Learning Intention:To use counting and measuring strategies to find the total of two amounts.

Learning Experience Overview:

In Math, students have been developing their understanding of additive thinking. In this learning experience, they were exploring the concept through a measurement lens by measuring their body with informal units.

Launch:

We began the lesson by playing a fluency game called ‘Sleeping Teddies’ as a class. The teddies are first placed in a row on the floor, to then count the total number of teddies (10 teddies in a row). A group of teddies from the pile are then hidden under a cup which is the cave, and the students need to figure out how many teddies have gone to sleep (hiding under the cup). They use the count on strategy to find the amount of sleeping teddies.

Explore:

After the launch, students explored additive thinking through a measurement lens. Students measured themselves and their partner using their feet and counting the number of steps from head to toe and fingertip to shoulder. Once the students counted the steps, they recorded it on their sheet and added the two amounts together using the ‘counting on’ strategy.

Enabling:

Students used concrete materials to add the two amounts (counters, teddies, blocks).

Extending:

Students wrote a number sentence including the two amounts they added and the total.

Summarising:

During this lesson, students discussed:

How they used the ‘counting on’ strategy. Students start with the biggest number, say it out loud then then count on from there.
Why we use the counting on strategy?
Which body part was harder to measure; arms or legs? Why?
The different measurement strategies and why they are important to measure accurately.