Using our Families to Explore Math

As we get to know one another this first month of school we have spent some time talking about our personal lives and interests. Exploring the number of people in each family was a great opportunity for the children to share information and embed some number sense into our discussions.

I noticed that the children really have enjoyed building with the unifix cubes during free play time.

After reading a book about the diversity of families, the children were asked to represent the number of people in their families, using one cube per person. We didn't limit this to the number of people living in a house, so the children had interpretation and control over who they considered their 'family' and built their numbers as they chose.

Once every child had created their 'family' using cubes, we used number cards to help us graph them. Each child had a turn putting his or her family under the corresponding number.

Comparing the number of families who had 3, 4, 5, or 6 members gave us an opportunity to count and compare numbers as we looked for the most and least in each group.