Missing Numbers
On Monday, I had the pleasure of watching one of my student teachers complete a lesson plan about missing numbers with the children in her classroom. She was very well-prepared by creating worksheets with large numbers written in circles with several numbers missing. She then had stickers with the missing numbers on them.
I didn’t notice at first, but very lightly on each circle was a faint outline of the number that should be there. This clue really helped some of the younger children because it became a matching game, rather than a number recognition activity.
These three pictures show one child trying to match the numbers. For me, the most fascinating thing that I saw was the way she split the 1 and the 0 from the 10 sticker and put the number 1 in the 1 spot, and the 0 in the 0 spot on the number 10. She then took the number 1 and put it in the 10’s place on the 10 spot. She worked really hard getting her stickers on the page. I loved that she recognized the 1 and the 0, but clearly didn’t get that the 1 and the 0 together made a 10.
This website has a missing number game that would be a great addition to a missing number activity.
This site has tons of worksheets that should be fun. I think my kids will enjoy doing it and hopefully the 3 year old who struggles will learn from them.
That is great. One of the things I reminded my student is to create sheets with more challenging missing numbers and less challenging missing numbers. This way all of the kids can enjoy the activity by being challenged but not frustrated.