10 Black Dots

In continuation with our focus on Counting, today we read 10 Black Dots and had an interactive lesson where 10 students in the audience had 1 black dot each.

Every time we needed to add one, one student from the audience would stand up and join the formed line of black dots in front of all the students. We practiced counting forwards, backwards, one-to-one correspondence and grouping (4 and 4 make 8). In the end, the students understood that 3 and 3 made 6 (addition), 4 and 4 made 8 and figured out that 5 plus 5 MUST make 10 and self created (without much direction) 2 groups of 5 to show equal groups.

Questions I asked prior to reading the story:

What do you think the story is about?

"Black Polka Dots, because I see them on the orange" - Vanessa
"I see the word TEN" - Stella

"I see number 1 and 0" - Joshuwa S.

The whole class shouted that they saw the number 10!

Questions asked during the story:

How many dots to we see?
We have 6, we will add one more - how many will we have?
"7" - Joshua B.
"3 comes after 2" - Whayne

"4 comes after 3" - Vanessa

Zooming in on the literacy component, the students were able to complete the words in the story recognizing that they were "rhyming words". I would allow the students to complete the sentences out loud which is something that many of them enjoyed! Try this strategy at home with books that rhyme. 

In-Class Math Activity:

Creating an image using 10 black dots or less! Check out what they came up with....