Students order a set of six or more objects according to their masses. Encourage them to try different strategies, such as comparing everything to say, two-color counters. Students work in small groups or all together in a large group. Students use the vocabulary to describe the objects as they place them in each set. Students compare the number of objects in the two sets made from the original set of six objects, then re-sort the objects according to other attributes to generate other combinations of six objects.
Students work in pairs.
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.