Since winter break, first grade students have been working on applying addition and subtraction strategies, improving their fact recall, and understanding place value concepts. Students are now focused on a mini-unit on comparing numbers. Throughout each unit students have been tasked with counting and comparing quantities, adding, and subtracting. We began our study of comparing numbers by reviewing place value concepts (ones, tens, hundreds, thousands). This place value is an important skill in comparing numbers. Students learned to start by comparing the largest place value and moving to the smaller place values if needed. If a number has the same digit in the hundreds place, we must move to the tens place to compare!
We began by re-listening to a favorite song: Greater Than Less Than by Numberock. Students sang along and refreshed their previous knowledge of the greater than and less than symbols.
Next, we worked as a class to write the correct symbol between two numbers. Students took turns coming up to the board to write the correct symbol. We also practiced how to read a comparative number sentence from left to right. 12<28 is read as “Twelve is less than twenty eight.” while 28>12 is read as “Twenty eight is greater than 12.” Both can be used to compare the same number set.
After practicing as a class, we used full-body movement to practice choosing the appropriate symbol while we danced along to a GoNoodle about comparing numbers. We have so much fun using movement and music while we learn!