Musical Whole Numbers

 Designed by: Katie Howard,  Caughman Road Elem.

Grade Level: Fourth    Subject: Math

1) Core Curriculum Objective:   Identify and locate missing whole numbers on a given number line.  (4PF1-8)

2) Overview: Students will play a game similar to musical chairs only when the music stops the students will have to get themselves in numerical order instead of getting into an empty chair.  This game can be done with whole numbers as stated in this particular objective or the game can be adapted for lots of other skills such as decimal numbers, fractions, or even multiplication and division facts.

3) Essential question: How can you find the numerical order of a group whole number if some of the numbers are missing?

4) Time Frame: One fifty minute lesson

5) Resources:    

- music and CD player

-index cards with whole numbers written on them

-number line worksheet with missing whole numbers

6) Assessment:  

Teacher observation will be the main assessment for this lesson. (If so desired, the teacher could also use a worksheet with number lines of whole numbers that have some of the whole numbers missing.)  What the teacher would look for in her observation of the game is: Can the students put themselves in numerical order without any assistance from the teacher.  Do the students know how to put the numbers in order with numbers missing in-between?  Is there any one student that repeatedly needs an unusually high amount of help from peers to figure out where their number belongs in the invisible number line?  Is there any particular group of numbers that the students have not mastered as far as their numerical sequence goes? 

Criteria for the informal teacher observation would be that all students remain as one of the last four at some point during one of the games.

7) Instructional Activities:

Begin the lesson with a question to the students such as "I'm thinking of a number between 56 and 67, what is the number?  Students will enjoy taking turns to figure out the number.  (My students and I play this game a lot while waiting on related areas or while in the lunch line.)  Then the teacher may want to draw a number line on the board and fill in only a few whole numbers and have students come up to fill in the missing numbers.  Once everyone is familiar with the process of finding missing numbers the musical whole number game may be played. 

Ask the students if they have ever played musical chairs, then tell them  that the class is going to play musical whole numbers.  Each student will be given an index card with a whole number written on the card. ( The teacher will have already written the desired whole numbers on the cards, the numbers the teacher chooses to write on the cards will be ones that she feels will be a challenge to the students and yet allow for some success.)  The teacher will then put on some music that the students to march around the chairs holding their index card.  When the music stops the students will be required to get in numerical order according to the cards that they have in their possession.  The last student to find out where their number goes in the invisible number line will be out.  However, instead of letting that student sit out he /she may be the next person to operate the music, taking turns with the next person out of the game.  The game may be played until there are four to five people left and then a new set of index cards may be given out to play a new game.  The same set of cards may be used if they seemed to challenge the students enough.  Increase the difficulty by putting numbers with decimals if so desired.