Transforming a 120s Chart into a Number Line

Happy August, friends! I hope this post finds you well and you feel like a teaching champion. We just ended our first full week of 1st grade, and I’m a *tad* tired. Thank goodness for Saturdays. 🙂 Today I am joining with dozens of amazing teacher-bloggers to bring you simple and promotion-free ideas for your classroom.

At this point, stand by and watch their eyes grow. It is so, so cute and kind of magical. Soon students are moving to the floor and stretching across multiple tables. Expect it to get fairly loud as students realize how large the number line is, “It’s getting SO big!” “When is it going to stop?” “It’s taller than I am!?!”

As students are laying their number grids/lines on the floor, the lightbulb moment happens – “It’s just like the number line on our wall!”

After creating our own number lines, enjoying their length, measuring ourselves, trying to jump rope, attempting to make a pinwheel, lassoing, and all other first-grade antics, we met on the carpet to talk about our learning. We asked and talked about questions like – “So, what is a number line?” “How is it possible that a small number grid can be so long?” “How can this help you when we’re working in math?” It was so interesting to hear my beginning mathematics make so many connections and begin to ‘see’ our number continuum.

Well, that’s it, friends! A super simple, cost-free way to make the 120s grid a little more real for our small friends. It’s a fun, hands-on lesson that leads itself. Plus, it’s ridiculously exciting for our sweet firsties, and really brings ‘home’ the reason why we are learning all about the 120s grid!