Lesson 1

The purpose of this lesson is for students to explore connecting cubes. Teachers also have an opportunity to gather formative assessment data about students’ counting concepts and skills.

Students use connecting cubes in math activities throughout the year. They share their thoughts and ideas about connecting cubes during the Notice and Wonder routine and then try their ideas during free exploration. Students have an opportunity to explore the connecting cubes before they are asked to use them to represent mathematical situations in later lessons. As students explore connecting cubes, they likely will build objects. As you monitor, consider asking questions such as “How many red connecting cubes do you have in your object? How could you find out? What color are those connecting cubes? How did you decide which color to use? How many connecting cubes are on the bottom of your object?” These questions help learn more about each student.

The first few lessons in this section are intentionally shorter to allow students to learn the structure and routines of math lessons and to give teachers an opportunity to learn what students know about concepts of number. If there is extra time, students may spend more time exploring connecting cubes in the first activity.

Throughout the section, observe students for the look-fors on the Unit 1, Sections A-D Checkpoint. Consider asking a few students to count one-one-one in each lesson throughout the section.

What part of the lesson went really well today in terms of students’ learning? What did you do that made that part go well?