Magnet Warm-ups

Since the initial assessment and interviews, I decided to focus on a number each week and conduct several whole class lessons.  I wanted the lesson to be quick, more of a warm-up, so I could do it several times over the course of a week.

The first we worked on the number 4 on one day and 5 for two days.  I used magnets on the white board and modeled showing 4 in different ways.
The next day I told them we would do the same thing with 5.  I drew a line down the middle of the board and the students came up and would put different groups on each side, for example 1 & 4, 5 & 0, 2 &3.  The next day we repeated the activity without the line.  IT was interesting because one student took all of them and separated the all over the board.  I told them we could call it 5 ones.

The following week, we repeated the same activity with 6 magnets.  Since the number is bigger, I encouraged them to make as many groups as they wanted.  Here are the combinations they came up with:
0  & 6
1 & 5
4 & 2
3 & 3
2 & 2 & 2
1&2&3&1
1 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1

I thought it was amazing to see how many ways they thought to make the number and was excited to see the 3 groups of 2.  Counting by 2's is a stepping stone to addition and multiplication.

One day I used the students instead of magnets to act out ways to make 7.  I asked groups of 7 kids to stand in the front in a row.  One of the audience members could come up and ask some of the students to stand in a separate group to show ways to make 7. 

Then, on October 24th, I decided to do another index card assessment/exit ticket asking them to show 6.  This time I told them they could show it in two different ways, one on each side.  Those were the only instructions I gave.  16 out of 18 students showed 6 in two different ways!
Here are the focal student's exit tickets:

 Ivan

Anabel

Anabel drew 4 groups of two, which equals 8.  I am curious to see if it was a computational error .

Nora

 Nora used the same grouping of 2 & 4 only in different order.

Kamaya

The results of this last exit ticket were very exciting.  I did not expect so many students to show 6 in more than one way, especially since it was an option.  I think it will be interesting to see if they begin to show larger numbers in even more ways than two as the year progresses.  Also, as we begin to work with teens/ numbers to 20, how can I bridge this developing number sense to help the students understand the concept of 10's and 1's?

 I am also including one of my newcomer's exit tickets: