As an instructional coach, I was often asked to focus on early development of number sense for addition and subtraction. Providing students with a wide range of experiences to compose and decompose a number was the best way to approach this. I wanted to create a way to have teachers understand how developing part-part whole relationships is critical to building an understanding of addition and subtraction concepts.
My work has often included English language learners. Instead of using focusing on strictly number talks, I began to explore pictures as well. This included themed part-part-whole cards. Each card was divided into three equal frames. Based on themes, students would explore the missing part. For example, the first frame had a number listed. The remaining frames were made up of parts of the whole number.
Cards had one foldable flap. I was absolutely delighted when a 6 year old student created his own cards to use in a partner math chat. I have often used the cards in addition to number talks, placed them at math stations and used them for assessment purposes.
While assessing students, I observe how they "see" the objects. Do they count them? Can they subitize based on prior experiences? These cards become a useful tool to develop part-part-whole relationships while building some thematic vocabulary.
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