Party Planners: The Goodie Bag Count

On February 27, the Party Planners met to figure out how many goodie bags they would need for the children at Ms. Leigh’s party. At their last meeting, they found out that there were seventeen children in Ms. Iris’ class and sixteen children in Ms. Kazari’s class.

RB: “I’m going to use my fingers."
Ms.Leigh: “Do you think you have enough fingers?”
BW: “She could count with her toes.”

As BW and RB tried to count with their fingers and toes, they noticed that it was very difficult to know when to stop counting. The girls started at seventeen, then counted each finger and toe over and over again. The girls understood the concept of counting up from seventeen, but did not know how to add sixteen to their original number.
Ms. Leigh: “How can you show me seventeen?"
RB put all ten of her fingers up.
Ms. Leigh: “That’s ten. Who can help make that seventeen?”
KO threw her hands up.
Ms. Leigh: “Now let’s count how many fingers we have up.”
The girls counted as Ms. Leigh pointed to each finger. They counted up to twenty.
Ms. Leigh: “How can we make this seventeen?”
KO put her hands down as RB left hers up.
EC: “That’s ten.”
Ms. Leigh: “That’s right, let’s add to that to make seventeen.”
The group used seven of KO’s fingers to add to RB’s ten fingers. Once seventeen fingers were up, the group counted all the fingers to make sure they had seventeen.

Ms. Leigh: “We have seventeen. Now we need sixteen.”
BW and EC threw up both of their hands.
Ms. Leigh: “Remember, when two people put up all their fingers, it makes twenty.”
EC closed one of her hands.
Ms. Leigh: “How many do we have now?”
The group counted BW's and EC’s fingers as Ms. Leigh pointed to them.
Ms. Leigh: “We have fifteen. How can we make sixteen?”
EC put up one more finger.
Ms. Leigh: “Now let’s count again.”
The group counted BW's and EC’s fingers.
KO: “It’s sixteen. We did it.”
Ms. Leigh: “Now we have a group of seventeen fingers, like our class, and a group of sixteen fingers, like Ms. Kazari’s class. Each finger represents one child. How many children or fingers do we have?”
RB: “We have to count our fingers.”
As Ms. Leigh pointed at each finger, the group counted.
RB: “Thirty-three. There are thirty-three children.”

After figuring out how many children will be at the party, the group set out to the copy machine to make copies of the unicorn picture they will put on their goodie bags. The girls worked together to make thirty-three copies of the black and white unicorn picture.

Once back in the classroom, the girls sat on the blue rug and began to cut out the unicorn pictures. They used their hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills to cut around each unicorn picture.

At our class reflection meeting, the Party Planners shared with the rest of their classmates how they were able to solve their math problem.

Posted on March 16, 2007 2:42 PM | Permalink