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Number of the Day - How it Works
Number of the Day is a simple Number Sense Routine that requires minimal teacher preparation. The teacher chooses a number to be the "Number of the Day" and asks students to come up with as many ways as they can to make/show that number. Students may choose to represent the number physically with math tools, draw a picture, or use an abstract representation with numbers, operations, and equations.
Number of the Day allows all students access to the problem. Students can use their background knowledge to represent the number at their current level of thinking and contribute to the conversation. Even students who struggle in math can have success when choosing how they want to represent the number. Allow for various representations besides numbers only such as use of manipulatives or drawing pictures. No one student's representation is more accurate than another if both correctly represent the Number of the Day. For those representations that do contain an error, facilitate discussions in a way that encourages a supportive community where mistakes are valued and seen as opportunities for everyone to learn together.
Encourage students to represent the Number of the Day in more than one way. When multiple representations of numbers are shared, students will start to think more flexibly about numbers, recognize ways to decompose numbers, and realize they don't have to use the number "as is" when performing computations. As with other Number Sense Routines, allow individual think time, partner share time, small and/or whole group discussions to make connections among the various representations.
Example: Number of the Day - "10"
Sample representations at different grade levels might include:
Early Primary Grades: Students may draw pictures of ten items, use math tools to show combinations of ten: 5 and 5, 3 and 7, etc., and use addition and subtraction to represent 10.
3rd/4th Grade: In addition to using the representations listed for early primary grades, students may use all four operations to come up with ways to make 10 such as 4+6, 18 - 8, 5 x 2, and 30 /3.
5th/6th Grade: Students may use any of the representations previously listed as well as instigate responses that bring about discussions of the properties, order of operations, decimals, fractions, positive and negative numbers.
Number of the Day is appropriate for all grades K-12. Upper grade-level students may find even more interesting ways to make the number 10. For upper grades, the Number of the Day could be integers, decimals, or fractions. An extension for middle and high school students might be to have a "Term of the Day" and include variables: 3x, 2y - 7, etc.
Note: When dealing with upper grades, the number does not necessarily need to get bigger. The math thinking can be deeper even with small numbers.
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