Teach:
Read the nursery rhyme, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe several times in a shared reading lesson. Talk to the students about the number words in the text. Explain to the students that a number signifies an amount, but when we write about a number, we use a number word. Provide an example comparing the number 1 and the number word, one. It has the same meaning, only it is written in word format. Ask the students to create a list of numbers. Next to each number, write the number word. Refer back to the nursery rhyme. Show the students the number words again. Write the
number in front of the class (to model the correct formation of the number) on a small sticky note and place it above the word on the nursery rhyme.
Teacher Preparation:
Create a graph with shoes in it, up to ten (10 columns of ten shoes) on copy paper. Make copies for each student in the class. Write each digit, 1-10 on an index card and the number words, one-ten, on the back of each index card and laminate.
Prior Knowledge Needed:
One to one correspondence of number to object, up to ten. Some graphing skills.
Procedure for Playing the Center Game:
Tell the students that they are going to randomly draw a number, count the shoe(s) and color it in. For example, the student draws the number 1 and colors one shoe. The student flips the card over, to find the word "one", and writes it in the column beneath (this makes the game self-correcting, and teaches them that a graph has labels). Last, the student sets the number 1 card aside. Continue in this manner until the graph is complete with numbers 1-10.
You may want
to play a practice game with the students, modeling the procedure. If your students are confusing a
letter, a number and a word, read more here.
Follow-up/Assessment:
Check each graph for accuracy, to learn more about student comprehension of number words. Ask the student to provide you a sentence with the number word in it.