Unifix Counting Towers

Curriculum Goal

Demonstrate an understanding of numbers, using concrete materials to explore and investigate counting, quantity, and number relationships (#15).
Apply the mathematical processes to support the development of mathematical thinking, to demonstrate understanding, and to communicate thinking and learning in mathematics, while engaged in play-based learning and in other contexts (#20).

Ask the child to point and read each number on the number line (Appendix A).
Put the deck of number cards (Appendix B) upside down.
Invite the child to select a number card, read the number and build the corresponding “tower”.
The child continues the activity until they have turned over every card and completed the staircase of towers from one to ten.
Ask children comparison questions – How many more cubes are there in Tower 5 than there are in Tower 4?

Do children have one-to-one correspondence when counting?
How comfortably can children recognize the symbolic number and build the corresponding tower?
Can children answer comparison questions accurately?

Another activity using unifix cubes, developing students’ understanding of number magnitude.