Math: Ordering Objects by Size and Quantity

We began by brainstorming what "order" means. Many children said it is like the food that you get from the restaurant. "Like you order pizza or something." A child said that it is like "peace and order." Another said that it is like organizing things. Then we ordered jumbo Cuisenaire rods from shortest to longest. "It is like a stair case!" They exclaimed. We looked at the rods and observed that the each rod in the arrangement is one unit more than the rod that preceded it. Then we used multilinks to demonstrate the same concept. Finally, each child demonstrated their understanding of the concept of ordering by finding at least four objects and ordering them by size. See photos of their work (just click on the highlighted word, "photo"). Then we gathered as a group again. Each child was given a card with the numeric symbol and a picture representation of the quantities from one to ten. They looked at the number represented on the card in their hand, and as a group, ordered the cards from the least quantity to the most.