Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Monday Math: NY Math Standards and Decomposing Numbers

I came across the NY State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards for Mathematics and was looking through the Prek and Kindergarten math standards. I will likely use them as a rough guide in thinking about the upcoming homeschool year. 

One of my favorite goals is: 
"Decompose numbers less than or equal to 10 into pairs in more than one way, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each decomposition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 5 = 2 + 3 and 5 = 4 + 1)." 

Simply stated: understanding that to get to any given number there are several combinations that will get you there. 
I appreciate this goal for its focus on truly analyzing and understanding numbers. Kids will learn that that there are lots of ways to make a number. 

Math coach's corner had a fun way to play with this concept:
1. Give your child a target number and they count out that many counters (jelly beans, marbles, etc. )
2. Child covers her eyes, while you hide some of the counters under a cup or bowl.
3.  Child opens her eyes and tries to figure out how many counters are under the rock.  
   4. Take turns being the hider and guesser.

So for example, child counts out 6 marbles, you hide 2, child only sees 4 and has to figure out that 2 are missing to add up to 6. 

If your child is ready for it, you can have them work on  writing out equations for the combinations they discover. So for our example your list would look like this:

4+2=6
5+1=5
2+4=6
1+5=6
6+0=6
0+6=6
3+3=6





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