In this lesson, students will represent and solve a subtraction problem using a variety of representations and methods.  This lesson engages students through real-life, exciting pictures of children.

This resource is part of Tools4NCTeachers.

In this lesson, students "notice" and "wonder" as they look at a real world photograph. Then, they use a variety of representations to solve a problem related to the photo.

By the end of this lesson, students should be able to solve a
"put together, take apart" word problem by decomposing 8 in a variety of ways.

The words compose and decompose are used to describe actions that young students learn as they acquire knowledge of small numbers by putting them together and taking them apart. This understanding is a bridge between counting and knowing number combinations. It is how instant recognition of small numbers develops and leads naturally to later understanding of fact families. This task helps them develop an understanding of number combinations.