Mother Duck tucks the 5 rainbow ducks under her wings to sleep. You can use this craft to help your students begin to think algebraically. They can become aware of the number 5 and its constituent parts - 5&0, 4&1, 3&2.
Before your students glue their craft talk about how there are 5 babies altogether.
Let them play a few games where they hide a different number of little ducks under each wing and then explore the missing number to different combinations.
If your students need more help partitioning the number five you may like our Five Frame Math Pack!
Let students play in pairs with counters before they glue the baby ducks.
One student can hide ducks under the wings and the other student can guess how many are on the other sides, after one side is revealed.
Embedded in this task is an element of logical thinking - introduce students to some mathematical language - if …… then ….. (if there are 3 ducks under this wing then there must be 2 under this wing)
Once they have played this game a few times, record on a classroom chart the different combinations that make 5. Refer back to it as the week goes on. Play other math games where students have to make groups of objects in quantities up to five.
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