NCDPI – AIG Instructional Resource: Background Information

Resource Title: The Train Game
Subject Area/Grade Level (s): Math/ Kindergarten / Time Frame: 30 mins.
Common Core Standard Addressed:
Operations and Algebraic Thinking
Understand addition as putting together and adding to, and understand subtraction as taking apart and taking from.
K.OA.1 Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings, sounds, acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions or equations.
Mathematical Practices
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
4. Model with mathematics.
6. Attend to precision.
Additional Standards Addressed: NA
Brief Description of Lesson/Task/Activity: Students will be given a train of 10 Unifix cubes each. Using a dice they will decompose the train by the number rolled on a die. The person who still has a train in the end is the winner. This lesson works well after students have been assessed and have strong counting skills and number sense.
Type of Differentiation for AIGs (include all that apply): Enrichment x Extension x Acceleration
Adaptations for AIGs: x Content x Process Product
Explanation of How Resource is Appropriate for AIGs: The common core standard for this activity asks that students be able to decompose
by 2 addends. This task asks students to decompose with 3 or more addends. Also, it uses higher numbers up to 20.
Needed Resources/Materials
·  Recording sheet (see below)
·  20 unifix cubes all the same color per child
·  1 die per student
Sources: NA
TEACHER NOTES: This game can be played in pairs or in a small group. Once your AIG students are proficient at playing this game, you can have your other students play with trains of numbers up to 10 and not recording if that seems too hard.

NCDPI AIG Curriculum Resource Outline

STAGE ONE: ENGAGE
Ask the students “Who likes to play games?” “Who likes to win?” “Can you think of a game where the person with the most of something wins?” Explain that today they will play a game where you start with a certain number like 15 and then whatever number is rolled on a die will take away from that number. Explain that they will record their throws on their recording sheets. The student who keeps their train on the tracks the longest is the winner. Ask one of the students to be the teacher’s partner and play one round together. It may take as many as 10 rolls each of the die to decompose the train.
STAGE TWO: ELABORATE
After you have explained the game let the students play with you guiding them. Make sure they record their rolls, taking their cubes off the train and putting the number on the recording sheet. Then let the students practice independently.
Guiding questions for a closing group discussion:
·  As you played this game were you adding or subtracting?
·  How are putting together and taking apart the same?
·  Would the game go faster if the train was only made of 10 cubes?
·  Would the game go faster if the die had the numbers 5-11 on it?
STAGE THREE: EVALUATE
Formative: While children are playing are they carefully doing all three steps: recording, subtracting, adding?
Summative: When the game is over, can the students tell you how subtraction is the taking away of numbers. Can they connect to the addition/subtraction relationship.


The Train Game

Name: ______

Color in whatever you roll

If twenty seems too high for the student you may need to alter the game to a lower number.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF NORTH CAROLINA State Board of Education | Department of Public Instruction AIG ~ IRP Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project