Using Number Bonds

Do you use number bonds?  Here are a few ideas on how to use them to teach number sense.
Ever done this:
Line up 10 beans. Line up 10 more beans below the first 10. As you point to each row, say, "Does this row have the same number of beans as this row?" Usually children will quickly say yes. Now spread out the beans in the first row. Ask again, "Does this row have the same number of beans as this row?" And then...they say....no. As they point to the top row, they add, "this row has more."
This is an example of conservation of number. According to Piaget, children develop this concept at  developmental age 7. When children have conservation, they realize that just by spreading out the beans, you don't get more.
Now lets think about addition. Isn't that what we are doing? We take a set, divide it into 2 sets and put an equal sign in the middle.  Here's the problem...When we divide the group into 2 sets, we are "spreading" out the counters.  Children without conservation now see it as more!!!!! So when they read 3+2=5, in their mind they see...3+2 is more than 5! This leads to great confusion about the concept of equal.
So what do we do....? We have addition in our standards. Here's a great way to develop conservation using Number Bonds. Be sure and read all the way to the bottom of this post to grab the FREE number bond mats and the numeral cards!

Number Bonds Conceptual Level

To begin the lesson invite the children to place a given number of counters in the large rectangle. Say, "I have 5 bears." Have the children repeat it back to you.

Now, using the same 5 bears, divide the bears into 2 groups. Say, "I have 2 bears, I have 3 bears." 
Again, have the children repeat it back to you.

Last, move all of the bears back to the rectangle and say, "I have 5 bears." Children repeat.  By moving the bears back to the original location, the children see that the number of bears doesn't change just by spreading them out. Repeat with various ways to make 5.

Transitioning to Abstract Level

Once the children are fluent with dividing sets and have developed the understanding that they don't have more just by spreading them out, they are ready to transition to abstract. (This could be several months, more or less, for the children.) Invite the children to place a given number of counters on the new number bond mat. Say, "I have 5 bears." Invite the children to repeat after you.

Divide the bears into 2 sets using the circles. Say, "I have 2 bears, I have 3 bears." Again, the children repeat.

Demonstrate adding the "2" and "3" to show how many bears are in each circle.  Ask, "How many are there all together?" Since the children have developed fluency with dividing sets and have conservation of number, they should know that there are 5 altogether. Model your thinking as you show how you add the "5".  Repeat with other combination for 5. 
Once the children become fluent with this step. Transition to writing the number sentence on dry erase boards.
Be sure and grab these FREE number bonds and numeral cards below!
Here are the Peek at My Week-Mail plans.  I think I have shared how I lay them out in the past few peek at my week posts, so I am not going to do that. If this is your first time reading these plans, look back at other peek at my week plans to see how they are organized.


Presenting on the road can be very lonely. I love people! But, when I am traveling I often find myself alone. I’m not telling you this so that you will somehow feel sorry for me, but so that you will know just how excited I get when I realize I am NOT going to be alone! So you can only imagine how super excited I was when I received a message from Katie of Little Warriors, that I was going to be working in her school district on Friday! When she went to sign up for her sessions on Thursday night, she saw my name in the listings! I didn’t know that she worked in the district where I was presenting! Now, if we had put two and two together, we could have planned to get a cup of coffee (or a diet coke!) or something together, but it was still fun to see her on Friday!

Hooray for President’s Day

That was quick! While we are still planning our Valentine’s Day Party we have to shift gears and think about President’s Day. Now, many of you may have that day off.  If so,celebrate on the 18th with your kids! I posted last year about some of our activities. You can read about those (here). Here are a few others that we are doing.

We gave the kids the letters to spell the word president. Then, we sat them in front of the word wall. They had to look at the words on the wall and see if they could make any of them with the letters that they had. We made a President’s Day place value book. Each page has a significant number and how it relates to President’s Day. The kids used the bingo dotters to stamp the number using the tens frames.

We took important vocabulary words for President’s Day. Then, the kids wrote their name in the boxes under the word. Finally, they had to decide if the word was longer, shorter or the same length as their name. We talked about characteristics of each of the presidents. Then, the children recorded their connections to that president.

We gave the kids a piece of brown bulletin board paper. They drew a map of their bedroom and made a key. Then, we wadded it up and spread it back out to give it that leather look of old maps. We made a stove pipe hat using a toilet paper roll. Then, the kids wrote a letter. We rolled up the letters and placed them inside the toilet paper roll.

These ideas are from the Hooray for President’s Day unit.

Peek at my week Valentines! And a look back at what we did this week….

Each week, I post weekly plans of the things we are doing in our class. These plans can easily be downloaded and printed to make your planning easier.

If you have looked at the last few Peek at my Weeks that we have posted, you probably can tell that the first line on this page keeps the same basic frame each week. This makes for easy planning, a predictable pattern for the kids, and a few less gray hairs for me! We are moving right along, after a slow start in our Reader’s Workshop, just starting unit 4. I love this unit on patterns.

This page is for centers… on the top row what we are doing during centers,  middle row shows what the kids are doing during centers, and the bottom row shows their “can dos” when they are finished.  Like I mentioned in the other peek at my weeks, you can find more about how we manage our centers (here).

This page is our math time: Our mini lesson, what we are doing at our table, and the have to centers for the week.

This page is what the kids do when they finish up their math have to. The last row is what we are doing during our large group time.
Now what were we doing this past week? Here are a few pictures!

Fun with Groundhog’s Day It was a huge success! The kids loved making their paper bag groundhogs and writing their new learning in an All About Groundhogs book.

In Reader's Workshop we were practicing unknown words and reading smoothly. During this lesson we were apply all that we know about what good readers do....good readers look at pictures, good readers reread, good readers know some words fast. This is a lesson from  Unit 3 in Reader’s Workshop.

Playing our new Magnify It! Game…success!!! The kids loved this new game. They used their magnifying glass to look closely at each small picture. After naming the picture, they look for the card with the beginning letter! They loved it!

Peek at My Week! Winter (Yes, Winter Finally Game to GA) and Groundhogs Day

Hope all my southern friends are all thawed out! I know you northerners just want to shake your heads at us! You never “get good” at things that happen only once in many years.  So as we start back to school, here’s what we will be doing….
Can you believe it is February, already?

Groundhog’s Day is today, so you might have already covered it…sorry! If you were waiting until tomorrow, here’s what we are doing. Click on each of the graphics above and it will take you to where you can find the lesson plans for Groundhog’s in a Day and Groundhog’s, a Little Each Day. These ideas are from our Hooray for Groundhog’s Day. We did add a few new activities to that unit. I talked about them in this post (here).
We always wait until later in January to do our winter unit. IF we are going to have any winter weather, this is the time of year that it will happen. We hit the nail on the head this year, now didn’t we.  So….Here’s what we are doing the rest of the week.

Page 1:
Top Row shows what we do each morning for our morning meeting. We do the calendar and then an activity that works on those reading/writing foundational skills. Good news is that once we had this figured out, it stays the same every week, only changing the words we are using. So this page basically stays the same each week.
Second and Third Rows show what we are doing during our Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop Time.
Bottom Row is our foundational mini lesson before we send the kids off to do centers.

Page Two is what we are doing during Literacy Centers. You can read more about how we organize our literacy centers on another post. You can find that post (here).
Top Row is what we are doing at “the teacher table”.
Middle Row shows what are 5 “have to” activities will be for the week. The kids do one a day. This is all explained in the post mentioned above.
Bottom Row shows what the kids are doing once they finish their have to. These are the traditional literacy centers. I keep them very open ended so that I don’t have to check it! As long as they are busy learning and relatively quiet, all’s good!

Page 3 shows what we are doing during our Math Workshop Time.
Top Row is our mini lesson.
Middle Row is what we are doing at “the teacher table.”
Bottom Row shows the 5 have to activities for the week.

Page 4:
This is the last page. It shows the activities that are available to the kids once they finish their have to math activity. You can read more about organizing that (here.)
I hope these are as helpful to you as they were to us. When you open the google doc, you can click on the title of the unit and it will take you to that unit on tpt. Hopefully that will save you some time searching.