Counting and Producing a Set of Pennies for Shopping

• Provide opportunities for students to produce sets of a given size
• Count to answer "how many"
• Teach "keeping track" strategies
• Say counting words in correspondence with objects

• Supporting conceptual understanding
• Modeling and using math language

What to Look for in This Clip:

Encouraging students to produce sets of a given size is a great way to support their counting and cardinality skills.

During this activity, we see a student practice these skills as the teacher asks her to produce a set of five pennies. The student uses a "keeping track" strategy as she moves each penny into the teacher's outstretched hand. She also says the counting words in correspondence with each penny she moves. Then, the teacher prompts the child to count again by asking, "How many do you have left over?" This gives the student another opportunity to practice her counting skills, and we see her use a slightly different "keeping track" strategy as she slides each penny into a new pile. It's clear that this teacher has spent a lot of time helping students develop different ways to keep track of their counting, and it shows as students easily use different strategies on their own.

Once the student determines that she has seven pennies left, the teacher supports children's understanding that we can use counting to answer "how many". She does this by emphasizing and repeating the number seven when the child finishes counting.