Grade 1 Learning: decomposing ten

Bonjour! This week we continued with our 'ten in the nest' activities, and are now counting to 70 as a class by 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's.

The students were asked to think about and represent all the ways ten birds could be spread among two nests. Here are some examples of student work:

Notice how each pair of nests has ten total birds.

5 and 5 in the top pair; 1 and 9 in the bottom pair.

This student has shown 2 and 8, 5 and 5, 1 and 9.  I asked the students to show at least three different arrangements. 

We asked the students to check their work with a table partner once they thought they were finished, and to help others if they were in fact finished. One tool we used to help model this concept was a page with two circles representing the two nests, then spreading ten loose snap cubes among the two nests and counting them before drawing the result.