Students will experience the concept of even and odd using manipulatives. Students will determine whether a quantity is even or odd. Explain to the students that when every object in a group has a partner, we say that the group has an even number. If there is no partner for an object in a group, we say that the group has an odd number. Give each student or group of students a bag of 20 dried beans.
Students discuss the findings as a class.
If there are any numbers where the findings do not agree, repeat that exercise as a class. This activity can be done with many different objects and students often need to explore this concept many times. Higher sums can be more interesting for some children and they will still arrive at the same concept. This activity can be played as a game with cards or dice used to determine which quantity to explore.