"Shaping up" with ordinal numbers

This lesson teaches students ordinal numbers through literature, and a visual memory game, and it reviews shapes, colors, and ordinal numbers with a listening and following-directions assessment.

A lesson plan for grade K Mathematics

By Sue Bowen

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Related topics

• Learn more about counting, mathematics, ordinal numbers, and read alouds.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• identify instances when ordinal numbers are used.
• recall and match colors using ordinal numbers.
• listen and use their knowledge of colors, shapes and ordinal numbers to correctly complete the assessment sheet.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

40 minutes

Materials/resources

• Ten 9″x12″ sheets of black construction paper. Each sheet has a 6″x9″ rectangle of another color of construction paper glued in the center of it (two each of red, orange, yellow, green, blue). Laminate for stability.
• Henry the Fourth by Stuart J. Murphy. A Mathstart Level 1 book. Published by HarperCollins, 1999. ISBN 0-06-446719-8

Pre-activities

Students will need to know basic colors.

Students will need to know basic shapes: circle, triangle and rectangle.

Activities

1. Read Henry the Fourth to the students. Discuss the use of ordinal numbers in the book and how counting with ordinal numbers differs from “regular” counting. Ask for other examples of when we count using the words, “first, second, third,” etc. (Such as what grade someone is in at school.)
2. Show the students the Memory Game cards (on the black construction paper). Have them identify the colors on each of the cards and discuss how there are two matching cards of each color.
3. Choose 10 students to line up in the front of the room. Give each of these children one of the Memory Game cards. They should hold the card against their chest so that no one can see the color on their card.
4. The teacher should go down the row of students and have the class “count” with her the order of the standing students; i.e. “Mary is first, Johnny is second, Susie is third”, etc.
5. Call on one student in the “audience” to try and make a match. They do this by calling out the ordinal number position of the student who they want to turn their card. Example: The second person and the sixth person. The students cannot call them by name, they must use the ordinal number words.
6. The students whose numbers are called turn their cards around to the “audience.” If it is a match, then those two students sit down right where they are in line so that they maintain the ordinal positions of everyone. If it is not a match, then those students turn their cards back around and someone else in the “audience” tries to make a match. Continue until all matches have been made.
7. Play again so that every student has the opportunity to hold a Memory Game card.

Assessment

The students sit at their seats and are given one of the assessment sheets. They will need crayons to complete the assessment. Tell the students that they will need to listen carefully to the directions in order to complete their sheet correctly.

Each row of shapes has a different set of directions using ordinal numbers, colors and shapes. (See teacher instruction sheet.)

Completed assessment sheets should be collected and checked to insure understanding.