It's "Mall Mania" Day at the Parkside Mall. To celebrate, the 100th shopper to enter the mall will win all kinds of cool gifts. Jonathon, Nicole, Gabby and Steven—members of the Wilson Elementary chess club—are adding up the number of shoppers to come through each of the mall's four doors, sharing the data via walkie-talkie. Club captain Heather and advisor Mr. Grant are coordinating efforts. "How many shoppers so far?" asks Heather. Nicole counts 7, Gabby 4, Steve 3, and Jonathon 2: That's 7 + 4 + 3 + 2. Nicole adds the numbers one by one: first, 7 + 4 = 11; next, 11 + 3 = 14; and then, 14 + 2 = 16. Who ends up the lucky 100th shopper? Let's just say it's someone who never expected to be counted at all!
Addition strategies are important skills for adding more than two numbers.
Illustrated by Renée Adriani.
Ask your child (or students) to point to each animal as you count them together. Ask questions throughout the story, such as: "If there are six swans and one more is added, how many swans will there be in all?"
Look at things when you take trips outside home or classroom. Add up the toys in a sandbox, items in a shopping cart or doughnuts on a bakery shelf.
Ask your child (or students) to write her name using toothpicks. How many toothpicks does it take to make the first two letters? The first three? How many toothpicks does it take to make your whole name?
Teacher Idea: For "Animals on Board," we make circus train cars out of index cards. I cut out circles for wheels that are then glued on. All the students have little circus trains in front of them. Then we take animal crackers and recreate the story. It's very tasty but you can't eat it until you're totally done with the story! Once you've done all of the math, then you can go and eat your animal crackers. —Cathy Kuhns, Country Hills Elementary School, Coral Springs, FL
