Students build on the representations and language they used in the previous lesson, where they solved “are there enough?” problems and compared different quantities of connecting cubes. In this lesson, students make sense of the structure of Compare problems and the relationship between the quantities.

The first activity uses the Three Reads routine to help students better understand the story problem by describing the bigger quantity, the smaller quantity, and the difference. Throughout the lesson, the Compare problems use contexts that elicit matching. The questions are also structured to invite students to first identify which quantity is bigger or smaller, and then determine the difference. The Lesson Synthesis introduces the term “difference” as an answer to “how many more?” or “how many fewer?” The term will be used throughout the unit in this way, although students are not expected to produce it.

How effective were your questions in supporting students’ thinking today? What did students say or do that showed they were effective?