One partner uses the counters to act out a story involving numbers. The other partner listens and asks other questions about the story that the partners can use the counters to answer. Partners trade places and repeat the activity several times. Students have calculators available to them to record the actions they describe in their stories. In this way they can begin to build connections between the physical objects and actions and the symbols that represent these objects, actions, and results.
Students work in pairs.
Each partner selects any combination of a certain number of pattern blocks, e.g., 6. The student may choose 6 blue pattern blocks, or 3 red and 3 blue, etc. Each student makes a picture with his or her set of pattern blocks. Partners discuss the likenesses and differences of their pictures. Partners repeat the activity with a different combination or different number of blocks.