The purpose of this activity is for students to compare the number of objects in groups with very different quantities. Because the quantities are very different, students should be able to visually tell which group has more objects, without counting. Students may also match or count each group to compare.

MLR8 Discussion Supports. To support the transfer of new vocabulary to long-term memory, invite students to chorally repeat these words in unison 1–2 times: “more” and “fewer.”
Advances: Listening, Speaking

• Display 8 orange square pattern blocks and 2 green triangle pattern blocks.
• “Are there fewer orange squares or green triangles? How do you know?” (There are fewer green triangles. We can just see that there are a lot of orange squares and only 2 green triangles.)
• “There are fewer green triangles than orange squares. How many green triangles are there?”
• Demonstrate or invite a student to demonstrate moving or touching each triangle as the class counts. 
• Repeat the steps with the orange squares.
• “There are more orange squares than green triangles. 8 is more than 2. There are fewer green triangles than orange squares. 2 is less than 8.”

The purpose of this activity is for students to make groups with more or fewer objects than a given group of up to 10 objects. When asking students to make a group that has more objects than the given group, the given group will have very few objects. Similarly, when asking them to make a group that has fewer objects than the given group, the given group will have many objects. This should allow students to create and compare the groups visually. In a future lesson, students will create groups with more or fewer objects than a given group when the quantities are closer, where it will be helpful for students to match or count the objects in each group.

• Invite 2–3 students to share the groups of counters that they made that have fewer than the green triangles.
• “What is the same about the groups they made? What is different?” (They all made groups with different numbers of counters. They all have fewer counters than the green triangles.)

The purpose of this activity is for students to choose from activities that offer practice with number and counting concepts.

Students choose any previously introduced stage from these centers:

• Shake and Spill
• Math Fingers
• Pattern Blocks
• Picture Books