The purpose of this activity is for students to create a story based on a picture. While students may notice and describe many details in the picture, the goal of the activity is for students to tell a story about the mathematical aspects of the picture. The picture allows for multiple interpretations and possible stories. For example, there could be 5 students jumping rope and 2 students left or 3 students jumping rope and 2 more students waiting for a turn. In the Activity Synthesis, the teacher writes a story based on a student’s interpretation of the picture.

• Demonstrate writing a story based on students’ interpretation of the picture, such as: “There were 5 kids jumping rope. 2 students left to go play tag.”
• “We can use numbers and symbols to show what happened in the story. We can write ‘5 take away 2’ or ‘’.”
• “In the next activity, you will hear and act out a story like the one we just wrote.”

The purpose of this activity is for students to make sense of Add To and Take From stories by acting them out. The stories are about students at recess, so the context is accessible for students and easy to act out. The contexts can be adjusted to reflect the things that students like to do at recess. The stories are shared during the Launch. Students act out the stories in small groups.

• “Tell me about what happened in the story.”
• Reread the story and ask, “6 students were playing soccer at recess. What happened next?” 

• Reread the story about students playing soccer.
• “What did you do first to act out this story?” (First, we acted like we were all playing soccer.)
• “What did you do next to act out this story?” (Then 3 people walked away.)
• “How did you know that 3 people should leave the group?” (Because in the story, 3 of the kids had to go inside.)
• “The words in a story help us figure out what is happening. We can use numbers and symbols to show what happened in the story. We can write ‘6 take away 3’ or ‘’.”

The purpose of this activity is for students to learn Stage 1 of the Subtraction Towers center activity. Students build a tower, roll to determine how many cubes to subtract, and count to determine how many cubes are left.

Students choose any previously introduced stage from these centers:

• 5-Frames
• Build Shapes
• Counting Collections

• “Which center is most challenging for you? What makes it challenging?”