Happy Monday! Yesterday I shared a picture of some number bonds that I had made for our math lesson today. Today as we were working through our lesson on decomposing numbers, I snapped a picture of the ‘staches at work with their number bonds and shared it on Instagram and Facebook….and BAM! So many people were asking for the “deets” on the lesson so I decided to share it. Your wish is my command! WAIT! You’re not my FB friend or my Instagram friend!? We need to fix that! Click on the links to be my friend!
Back to our regularly scheduled lesson…
We started working on decomposing numbers last week and briefly introduced number bonds. I was so excited today when we kicked off the math lesson by asking if anyone remembered what we had been working on. They yelled “decomposing numbers” and “number bonds!” Hello excited teacher!
Why decompose numbers? It’s a great skill to build into addition and subtraction. It helps students understand that numbers can be made in a variety of ways.
Today we took our lesson a bit further.
Each child got a number bond that I made yesterday!
These are super simple to make. Just a large circle and 2 small circles. Add two arms and you have a giant number bond for decomposing numbers. I used my Martha Steward circle cutter to make my circles.
We started off with some group practice. I drew a number bond on the board and put a number in the large circle.
The ‘staches put the correct number of counters in the large circle on their number bonds.
Then the ‘staches were told to “decompose” their number. We had already talked about how decomposing meant breaking apart. They moved their counters to the smaller circles. We then shared all of the different ways we made the number.
After a few more whole group practice examples, we moved to independent practice.
We did the first two number bonds on our practice page together. And then I turned them loose!
On day 1, we had…wait for it…80% mastery!!!
I am so proud of the little ‘staches! They rocked it today!
Here’s the best part: they were asking to take the number bonds home! I will be giving them materials to make a smaller version to take home! You know it’s good if they want to take it home!
I had a bunch of questions about the practice pages! Well, how about this?!
THEY’RE FREE! Just click on this picture to go to my post from yesterday to download your free set of practice pages and task cards!!
Join The Newsletter
Subscribe to get our latest content by email.
Wonderful! Thank you SO much, Greg! Our kinders are required to master this by the end of the year, so by using this fun and engaging method, I'm sure they'll ask to do it regularly and be whizzes by then! Completely appreciative!! and congrats on your observation !
These are great! Thank you, Greg!
Thank you so much for these! I am using them next week!! You are AWESOME!!!
You rock it as always! Thanks for the ideas! (It's what we were just planning for yesterday!) -Michele
We've been practicing this,too. I love that the number bonds are so big. I'm making these right away. And thank you for the great practice pages!!!
GENIUS! We started decomposing last year and to be honest it was nothing short of disastrous! We are 'embarking' on the decomposing adventure this year in about a month and I was already starting to break in hives! THANK you for this AWESOME idea! I am going to share your site with my colleagues and FB friends! Breaking out the die cut machine, putting away the hive cream and looking forward to decomposing bliss!!! THANK YOU!!!!
Mr. Greg, I just love you. You are so sweet to share with all of us. Ask your mom if she will share you with me. I want you for another (borrowed) child! 😉
sallyteachk (using my brother's tablet-it doesn't put me as the writer and I don't know how to change it-techie I am not!)
Everything looks so wonderful here but I can't download any freebies. I just get a blank page. Any suggestions???
Hi there, I love how hands on your number bonds lesson was. I have tried a few times now to download the freebie but when I click on the image it says the page has moved. I can’t seem to find it in your freebie section either. Would I be able to get a copy?
Thanks so much! 🙂