Washington First Graders Study Number Sense

Washington Primary School first grade teacher Lauren Whitney’s students have been practicing their “number sense” through number patterns. The youngsters are having a fun time with the unit.

“They used 100-count math mats to identify how numbers change from left to right and when moving up and down,” Ms. Whitney said. “The students were able to tell that when they move from left to right the number in the one’s place changes and increase or decrease by one. And, when they move up and down the number in the ten’s place changes with the value either increasing or decreasing by ten.”

According to the website, Understood, number sense is a group of skills that allow people to work with numbers. These skills are a key to doing match and many other tasks.

Number sense involves:

• Understanding quantities

• Grasping concepts like more and less and larger and smaller

• Understanding the order of numbers in a list: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

• Understanding symbols that represent quantities; for example, 7 means the same thing as seven

• Making number comparisons; for example, 12 is greater than 10

• Recognizing relationships between single items and groups of items; for example, seven means one group of seven items

“At Washington Primary School, we believe in multi-sensory learning experiences,” Principal Dr. Michelle Richards said. “At the same time, teachers provide instruction that addresses the various learning styles.”