I've been thinking more about this, and perhaps yo...

2009-11-09T22:54:11.737-06:00

I've been thinking more about this, and perhaps you could use students who are left out (or "remainders") as an immediate challenge: "How many people should be in each group so that we can bring everyone back in?" In other words, frame the activity as one where we have to try to include everybody instead of a competitive game where you're trying to get people "out".

I can see this really helping with place value (gr...

2009-11-04T19:02:40.544-06:00

I can see this really helping with place value (groups of tens and ones!), especially as we learn regrouping. So often students can DO regrouping, but they don't understand WHY they carry the one.

I also think this would be a great way to start working with multiplicative reasoning. Play the game and do addition sentences 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 20, and then talk about what multiplication means, and look around. "We have 4 groups of 5, which equals 20. That means 4 times 5 equals 20."

I do see some potential problems with students being left out, but I think you could give students a time limit to find a group (3 seconds, no time to move around) or have them in their ABC order line before breaking up. I'm sure there are other ways, too.

Comments on I Want to Teach Forever: Simple Elementary Whole-Class Grouping Game

I've been thinking more about this, and perhaps yo...

I can see this really helping with place value (gr...