Lesson 4

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

Students share their thoughts and ideas about geoblocks during the Notice and Wonder routine and then try their ideas during free exploration. Students have an opportunity to explore the geoblocks before they are asked to use them to represent mathematical situations in later lessons. As students explore geoblocks, they likely will build objects. As you monitor, consider asking questions such as “How many geoblocks did you use? How could you find out? How did you decide which geoblocks to use?” These questions help teachers 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 geoblocks in the second activity.

In the lesson synthesis, students practice saying the verbal count sequence to 10 in preparation for counting objects in an upcoming section. Add variety to the counting by adding movement. For example, students can count as they clap, stomp their feet, or jump.

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Tell students that, at the end of the lesson, they will be asked to identify specific actions from their “Doing Math” list (both teacher and student sections) that they personally experienced.

Students shared their thinking multiple times in this lesson. What have you noticed about the language students use? What support can you offer to students who struggle to communicate their ideas orally?