We continue to practice using a number line, as it promotes creative solution strategies and intuitive reasoning. Yesterday we did an activity called "Hit the Target." Students used "skip-jumps" of 1, 5, and 10 to reach a given target on the number line. The goal of the activity was to arrive at the intended target by using as fewest skip-jumps as possible. This sometimes required students to subtract, the first time we have done so on an open number line! The concept of "skip-jumping" was introduced through learning about the history of the long-jump and the triple jump. We even got to try jumping on a "number line" in class!
Today a new workplace game was introduced called Star Power. This is a great game that reinforces skip counting and breaking numbers apart to get to "friendly numbers" (multiples of 10).