Early Math Project

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Jack the Builder

by Stuart J. Murphy

Just a Little Bit

What will Jack make with a pile of blocks?

Math Connections: 

Adding                       Counting on

Engineering

Activities to Do Together: 

• Practice “counting on.” When adding more objects to an existing group, instead of recounting all of the objects, count from the number of objects you have. For example, if you have five blocks and add three more, counting on would sound like “ Five, six, seven, eight. There are eight blocks now.” 

• Explore geometric shapes. Identify cubes, rectangular prisms, pyramids, and spheres. Find out which of these shapes are easy to stack and which are more of a challenge. 

• Find everyday objects and describe their shapes. For example, a cereal box might be a rectangular prism and a can of soup may be a cylinder.

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Extension Questions: 

1. How many blocks are in Jack’s hot dog stand? Jack started with two blocks and added one more on top, how many does he have now?

2. Is Jack’s rocket ship taller than Jack or shorter than Jack? How can you tell?

3. What would you build with blocks? How many blocks do you think you would need?

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Vocabulary for Building Math Concepts: 

add, big, eight, eleven, fifteen, five, four, fourteen, high, nine, one, seven, seventeen, six, sixteen, tallest, ten, thirteen, three, twelve, two