Number of the Day Builds Number Sense Skills
Number Sense. The reason I love Number of the Day is because of number sense. The foundation of math is the ability to fluently recognize, understand and use numbers in a variety of ways. Starting at the youngest of ages we can help our students build a solid foundation for their math futures and it starts with number sense.
Number Sense Activities that Work
Over the years I have done many different number sense activities with my students. I have pulled from my teacher toolbox the activities I feel have helped my students the most and put them into this fun, skills-based digital activity.
Here's a detailed look at the Digital Number of the Day activities.
Counting Sets
Each day starts out with counting out a set for the number of the day. This is a great way to work on counting skills and one to one correspondence. Learning and understanding 'how much' each number represents is an important part of building that number sense foundation.
As the numbers increase, it's not as time effective to count by ones, so higher numbers will include grouped counters which allows students to work on skip counting skills too!
Using Tally Marks
Another important aspect to number sense is being able to use other forms, like tally marks, to represent the number. Tally marks are great because 1) they are commonly used in real life which helps our students connect their learning to everyday life; and 2) they introduce the concept of skip counting by fives.
Each slide was intentionally set up to include a 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 set of tally marks. This allows students to work at their skill level. If a student needs to count by ones, they can. But it also opens the door to the concepts of addition and subtraction by asking questions like "how many more?"
Standard Form
One of the most basic levels of understanding numbers is knowing how to write the number in standard form. Learning proper writing formation for the digits 0-9, and then knowing how to put those digits together to form different numbers is one of the first skills our students learn. This is a precursor skill to learning about place value.
Since this is a digital activity, students will also develop some basic technology skills. This activity introduces students to typing.
Place Value
Speaking of place value . . . Number of the Day would not be complete without using place value to break down the number. Students will add each number into the place value chart and then build the number using place value blocks.
This is a skill that continues to build on itself as students start working with larger numbers. Understanding what each of the place value columns represents is a key part to building that number sense. It is this that helps students know that the digit '4' does not always equal the same quantity.
Down the road, students will also be introduced to using place value to write expanded form.
Using Ten Frames
Building numbers in ten frames is another great way for students to learn about quantity. Initially, students can use ten frames to count out sets, but as their knowledge of place value grows they can connect the sets of tens and ones to the number.
While students start out filling the ten frame one at a time, essentially counting by ones to build the number, the complexity will increase as students work with larger numbers. Later, students will be able to count by tens and fill a ten frame using skip counting.
Counting & Ordering Numbers
Counting might just be the first skill children learn with numbers. Even before they can recognize a number, they can often count. But being able to memorize some words in order does not mean that students understand the concept of counting. It is important to give our students lots of practice counting in varied forms. Students should be able to count forwards and backwards starting at 1 or another number. Students should also be able to fill in missing numbers in a series of numbers that are provided. Through this digital Number of the Day activity students will get lots of opportunities doing this.
As students become more familiar with the processes and working with higher numbers, the activities change slightly so students stay challenged. In the number line activity above, students are dragging in the correct number. However, a couple of months later, they will be typing in the missing numbers without scaffolded supports.
Students will continue to to be challenged with counting from any starting point and filling in missing numbers.
Relating With Other Numbers
Once students have an understanding of what a number represents and numbers in order, learning how numbers relate to each other is a skill students will develop. Using a hundreds chart is a great way for students to not only see numbers in order, but also how they relate to one another. On these digital Number of the Day activities students will be challenged to think about numbers on a hundreds chart as they relate to the target number.
Students will fill in the parts of a hundred chart that touch the target number. Students will start with the concepts of one less and one more.
Then they will add in the concepts of ten less and ten more.
As students skills continue to grow, so does the challenge they will see in the Number of the Day activities.
While keeping the activities consistent, they continue to gradually become more difficult as students are able. This allows the students to have the benefit of a spiral review that also continues moving them forward in their learning too!
Basic Operations
As students start working with higher numbers, they will also use the target number to practice some basic addition and subtraction. Using the number and images, students are able to use their counting skills to add or subtract.
Solid Number Sense Skills
Using these activities on a daily basis students will build a solid number sense foundation. This activity can be done as a whole group on a Smartboard or single device. What is great about this option is the modeling that can be done with the thinking and the activities. However, since it is digital it can also easily be shared with students to complete individually. This could be done at the same time as the group to increase engagement or it could be done individually as morning work, a math warm-up or even a daily math center.
This daily practice with a variety of skills is also a great informal assessment of what your students are learning and struggling with. As you see class struggles you can use this information to reteach skills and concepts. You can also add targeted skill practice in math centers. For individual struggles you can do targeted reteaching through small group instruction.
They key for our students to developing fluency with numbers is the repeated practice of number sense skills. By adding Number of the Day to your daily math schedule your students will be well on their way.
Save These Number Sense Ideas
Just pin this to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so you can come back and quickly find these number sense ideas.
No comments