In this number talk, Liz O’Neill focuses on structured student talk with her first grade learners.
Students are given a 2-second quick look at 3 ten frames and are asked to determine that number (23) mentally. Using sentence frames, students share with their partner what number they saw and how they saw it. She uses the nonverbal communication strategy of “private thumbs up” for students to share when they think they know the answer. O’Neill reminds students of sentence stems for them to share their ideas with their partner (e.g. “What number did you see?” “I saw the number ____” “How did you see it?”). She also reviews “Four L’s” for partner sharing: “Look at your partner,” “Lean toward your partner,” “Lower your voice,” and “Listen attentively.” In their sharing, students use the sentence stems to engage in mathematically focused conversations. O’Neill calls the students back together and elicits different ways that students found the number. Students share their way for finding the number, and then O’Neill challenges them to create a number model that matches their response (e.g. “Two tens and three ones is 20 + 3 = 23”). This number talk is illustrative of Common Core mathematical practice standard 1 (“make sense of problems and persevere in solving them”), as the students make sense of the problem. Students also are asked to create a number model out of their response, connecting to Common Core mathematical practice standard 3 (“construct viable arguments & critique the reasoning of others”).
