I know many of the math vocabulary words we use can be unfamiliar to kindergartner's, especially the word NUMBER SENTENCE. I will be in the middle of a math lesson and ask students for a number sentence and get looks of confusion. Someone will shout out, "What's a number sentence?'
You can see the math chart below that we added to our math word wall. Sue O' Connell's book Math Process Standard Series Communication suggested having students draw and label math sentence.
1. The child reads the number sentence on the page.
2. The child draws and labels each part.
Here are some examples
I was surprised when we worked on these little books because they seemed to get it right away. I am sure I will still have students shouting out WHAT'S A NUMBER SENTENCE?? But I think this lesson will help.
Actually, I heard Kim Sutton from California speak and she suggested that we do a disservice to our children when we say "number sentence." She rightfully believes, that we should be using the term "number equation" because we are asking the children to 'balance' or 'equate' the two sides of the equation, as in 2 plus 4 balances/is equal to 6. There is no sentence in this.
ReplyDeleteHi Sherry, That makes sense to use the term number equation. I will find a way to incorporate that in my conversation with kids. In my school as of now teachers often use the term number sentence especially next year! So for my kids it is important for them to know what that means. Thanks for sharing that! Melissa
ReplyDeleteWhat a great point. I am teaching the algorithm after a mini unit on balance scales and using the term equation makes so much more sense.
ReplyDeleteI also taught algorithm after balance scale! Seemed to help.
Delete