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Monday, August 25, 2014

Blocks on a bowl!

Do your kids need more visualising practice?
Blocks on a bowl is an awesome activity to help with this!

To introduce the activity, pair students up (I did similar ability levels). I gave each pair a plastic bowl and 5 counters.
One partner chooses some to put underneath (no peeking!!) and the other counters on top. The other student has to visualise how many are underneath. The first partner can then reveal if the answer was right.
1 on top, how many underneath?


4 on top, how many can you visualise underneath?

This activity is easy to differentiate for different levels and learners, simply by increasing the number of counters. We did do it for 6 counters so we could talk about our strategies of counting on and back, and then we did it again for 10 counters so we could talk about Friends of Ten.

You could also introduce a recording sheet or write on mini whiteboard

Why not try it?

4 comments:

  1. What a fantastic activity! My preps would really enjoy that one.

    Jemima
    Luck's Little Learners

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  2. I love it! Thanks for sharing such a great idea!!

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  3. We did something similar to this in our prep classes except we used the idea of cars going into a garage. They are still there but you just can't see them! The kids needed this real life example to understand the concept fully. We might be able to move back to the bowl now that they've grasped the concept.
    Sheri
    Early Years with Sheri

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