The purpose of this activity is for students to count their collection in a way that makes sense to them. Students may use a counting mat or 10-frame to organize objects as they count. Students use appropriate tools strategically as they choose which tools help them count their collections (MP5). As students share how many objects are in their collection, write or display the number to record their count. 

If there is additional time, invite students to count more than 1 collection of objects.

• “Can you tell me how many objects there are without counting them again?”
• If needed, demonstrate counting the group of objects and after saying the last number, ask “What does the number ___ tell us?”

• “Tell your partner how you figured out how many objects are in your collection.”
• Invite 2–3 students to share how they counted their collection.
• After each student shares, display the number and say, “There are _____ objects in their collection.”
• “In the next activity, we will share different ways that we counted our collections.”

The purpose of this activity is for students to describe different methods that help them count collections of objects. Consider adding visual cues to the chart created in this activity and leaving it displayed for students to refer to throughout the unit. When students explain how they could count the disorganized cubes, they attend to precision in counting accurately (MP6).

• “We talked about and wrote down many different ways that we can count collections of objects. Switch collections with your partner and figure out how many objects are in your new collection. If it is helpful, you can choose to count your collection in one of the ways that we talked about.”
• 3 minutes: independent work time

The purpose of this activity is for students to learn Stage 2 of the Number Race center. Students practice recognizing and writing numbers 11–20 as they roll a connecting cube onto the mat, identify the number it lands on, and trace that number on their recording sheet. To support their developing number recognition, students can match the symbol on the number mat to the symbol on the recording sheet. Students continue rolling and tracing until one number “wins” (all of the numbers in the column are traced). 

After students have traced all of one number, they can finish tracing the rest of the numbers or play again. Students can use different colors or writing utensils during this center. In a future variation of this center, students will write the numbers instead of tracing them.

After they participate in the Number Race center, students choose any previously introduced stage from these centers:

• Subtraction Towers
• 5-Frames

Students will choose from these centers throughout the section. Keep materials from these centers organized to use each day.

• Invite a student to share their completed recording sheet from Number Race.
• Point to and say each number. Invite students to chorally repeat each number.
• “Which numbers did they roll more than 3 times?”
• “Which numbers did they roll fewer than 4 times?”