Discovery

(ages 3, 4, 5)

Emerging

(ages 4, 5, 6)

Developing

(ages 5, 6, 7)

Beginning

(ages 6, 7, 8)

Expanding

(ages 7, 8, 9)



video download link to standards

Click a concept to unlock content:

Developing

(ages 5, 6, 7)

Uses a combination of tens and ones to build two-digit numbers


Featured Math Vitamins:

Adding Superpower Points

Students have been challenged to create their own superhero persona and assign powers to themselves. Using ten rods and unit blocks, students build and record representational models of their collected "superpower points."

|Download Math Vitamin :   PDF   Notebook  

Story:Good morning, superkids! We've been learning about the different powers that the kids of Noble's Green possess in our Read Aloud, Powerless. What if you could create your own superhero? Below is a list of may of the powers we'll encounter in Powerless and their corresponding power points. Create a hero that has the powers you want, and figure out how many power points your hero is worth. Record your own superhero equation.

Strength- 11 power points; vision- 6 power points; mind reading- 5 power points; flexibility- 10 power points; stealth- 17 power points; awareness- 16 power points; courage- 9 power points; invisibility- 7 power points; flight- 14 power points; speed- 4 power points; hearing- 6 power points; creativity- 21 power points

Inspired by Powerless by Matthew Cody; Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2009

Suggested manipulatives: Unifix cubes, multilinks, centimeter cubes, base ten blocks and place value trading mats.

Prep time: 5-10 minutes to put out a variety of manipulative block options, Math Vitamin recording sheets and trading mats.

Classroom time: Asking children to do their best work for each Math Vitamin assumes that some children will need a longer time than others. Ideally you want to offer a block of time for Math Vitamin projects and have another task available (writing, free exploration etc.) for those students who finish work prior to their peers. For this project allow 45 -60 minutes for students to work through all the steps.

How to individualize/stretch: This Math Vitamin is about having students practice beginning place value, adding tens and ones together and learning how to trade. For beginning explorations, give students the option to choose two sidekick superpowers and work on adding up the value of those two items with unifix cubes. For a student stretch, provide base ten blocks, make sure students are working in the hundreds and show them how to notate the beginning algorithm for adding multi-digit numerals together.


Go to related Common Core State Standards:


Math Vitamins:

Ages 6-8

Build a Ladder with Rods & Cubes

| Download Math Vitamin :   PDF   Notebook Last week, we were thinking about tree house design. We designed rooms and furniture and even looked at real tree houses around the world. Part of tree house design is thinking about how to get up the tree. Today, let's build some tree house ladders.

Design a tree house ladder on the back of your Math Vitamin sheet. Your ladder can be any size, as long as it fits on a page. Use rods to build the ladder's rails or sides, and units for the steps. Once you have built your ladder, record your work. How could you create a drawing to show what you built? What kind of equation could you write to represent your ladder? How many units is your ladder worth?

Build a Ladder from Rods & Cubes to Match a Total

| Download Math Vitamin :   PDF   Notebook Yesterday, we designed ladders to help us get into our tree houses and calculated their total value in units.

The size of a ladder depends on the height and shape of the tree. If your treehouse was at the top of a Douglas Fir, your ladder would need to be sturdy and wide. If your tree house was in a Palm Tree, your ladder might be thin and long. Different ladders can be represented by their total value in units. Below is a list of ladder values. Use a total from below to create a ladder. Once you have built and recorded one ladder, choose another value.

Ladder Values: 23 39 55 84 61


Math Continuum > Developing > Uses a combination of tens and ones to build two-digit numbers