The purpose of this activity is for students to revisit Stage 3 of the Counting Collections center introduced in grade 1. Students are given a collection of up to 120 objects. They record an estimate for how many objects they think are in their collection. Then they work with a partner to figure out how many objects are in their collection and each partner records how many. Students may draw pictures, write numbers or equations, or use base-ten representations to show their collection. The large groups of objects encourage students to use more sophisticated counting methods such as grouping and counting by twos, fives, or tens. Monitor for students who group objects, count by tens, and justify their total by connecting their total to the number of tens and ones they counted.

10-frames are provided as a blackline master. Students will continue to use these throughout the year. Consider copying them on cardstock or laminating them and keeping them organized to be used repeatedly. Bags of objects should be saved for use in later lessons.

• Select previously identified students to share.
• “How did you keep track as you counted?”
• “How did _____ represent how they counted?”

The purpose of this activity is for students to choose from activities that focus on adding and subtracting or sorting and representing data.

Students choose from previously introduced stages of these centers:

• What’s Behind My Back?
• How Close?
• Number Puzzles
• Sort and Display

• “Which activity did you choose? What did you like about the activity you chose?”