Math Lesson: Number Composition
Description of the Lesson
My overarching objective for this lesson was for students to understand that numbers (specifically the number 5) is both whole and made up of smaller parts—that numbers can be composed and decomposed. To the extent that it is possible in a single lesson, I believe that these goals were largely met. Most of the students demonstrated part-whole understanding by pointing out the different ways that they “saw” numbers in dot arrays by “chunking” into smaller groups. Later in the lesson they were asked to generate their own combinations of girls and boys that totaled 5 children in all. They used their own five frame mats and double-sided counters to do so. All of the students were able to independently generate a combination that was different from the two that we had already identified during the “I Do” and “We Do” sections of the lesson. Lastly, three out of five of my students successfully wrote, on our communal chart, number sentences that corresponded with their combinations. Two did not, but that was because unfortunately I lost track of the fact that they had not shared and did not give them a chance to do so. These two did, however, verbally articulate number sentences that their classmates had generated.