Show What You Know and Henny Penny

In Math we have been solving problems using what we know about different ways to show numbers.  Students are asked to show what they know by drawing pictures, numbers or words to represent their thinking. We have been working on figuring out different combinations of numbers by using two-sided counters.

Here is the problem we were solving today:
There are 11 things in the backpack.
Some are books.  Some are snacks.  
How many of each could there be?

Students had to decide which colour  the two-sided counter would represent: books or snacks.  They then "spilled" their counters out and counted how many of each there was.  The last task was to show their thinking.

Here are a few students at work:

Ten backpacks and one snack

Six backpacks and five snacks

We discovered that there are lots of ways to show numbers in two parts!  (There were 12 solutions to this problem.)

In Music we have been working on learning how to play the barred  and non-pitched percussion instruments.  Last week we put together a "performance" of Henny Penny.  We sang a song and told the story using the instruments. Here is a video of our performance.  (My apologies for the shaky video - it's a challenge to hold the video camera and conduct at the same time!)