Saturday, June 16, 2012

Using Number Lines


Using number lines is a great way to introduce adding and subtracting numbers. It’s a fantastic visual that students can have in front of them and physically move a marker to add more or take some away. Number lines will be extremely helpful when you get into adding and subtracting negative numbers as well. 
 

A number line is a straight line with equally separated dashes. Each dash represents a whole number in this situation. Numbers go from zero to… “Infinity and beyond” as Buzz Lightyear would say, in both the positive and negative directions. The arrows show us that it continues on.
Now, I stumbled upon a really neat and FREE application or “App” for elementary kids on Ipads. Ipads are becoming more popular in schools. As teachers we should take full advantage of that opportunity and become familiar with the technology and find some helpful resources for our classroom. I found an app called “Little Monkey Apps”. (You can download for free on Ipad or Iphone) I’ve attached the youtube tutorial video below so you can get the full feel of this application. Basically, it’s a kid friendly number line that uses frogs as moveable markers. There is a variety of things you could do with this app: Adding, subtracting, and counting by odds or evens are just a few things. It’s really fun and I think that kids would love it. It makes cute little frog noises too when you move them.  Thankfully for us teachers there is also a tutorial for teachers to read the full advantages of this Ipad/Iphone application. 


Check it out:

 


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