Number Talk with Pre-service: Tens Frames

My pre-service teachers and I had did a Number Talk involving tens frames.  Since we have not had a Number Talk in the couple of weeks, I found it befitting to have one now. The topic for todays class was early number sense and place value. Core part of early number sense is the ability recognize landmark or benchmark numbers, and being able to visualize numbers as one unit or unitize (Boreman & Rucker). The Number Talk session picture is below. Pre-service teachers were shown the image for 3 seconds. They had to remember the number of dots they saw, and how they saw it.  Pre-service teachers immediately saw there were 12 dots. However, how they saw the 12 dots were different. The following is a dialogue of the number talk:

 PRT One: I saw groups of threes.
Me: How did you see the groups of three?
PRT One: 3 at the top left. 3 at the top right. 3 more bottom left. 3 at bottom right. 3, 6, 9, 12.
I brought the point that we want to subitize quantities. Subitize is the ability to recognize quantities readily without counting. Subitizing helps children to see small quantities as units. (Boreman & Rucker)

PRT Two: I see 6 x 2.
Me: How did you see 6 x2.
PRT Two: I see 6 dots in the top frame and 6 dots in the bottom frame. 6 x 2 is 12.

PRT Three: I see 3+3+4+2
Me: How did you see 3 +3+4 +2
PRT Three. I see 3 on the left of top frame. 3 more on the right top frame.
Four in the middle of the bottom ten frame. One on each side of the bottom frame so that is 2.
So, 3 + 3+4 +2 =12

I commence to bringing out algebraic thinking into the NT conversation. We progressed through the computation with respect to algebraic thinking.
This  NT was conducted in order for my PST recognize the importance of the ability to unitize numbers and to give a visual representation of landmark numbers and subitize quantities as part of the early number concepts.





Boreman, K & Rucker, D. Pre number and number concepts for the young child. NAEYC.
             keynote.pdf presentation. Retrieved   
             from http://static0.shopify.com/s/files/1/0001/5601/files/NAEYC.keynote.pdf







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