Number of the day worksheets or activities are very popular in elementary schools, however many of them are boring, take up a lot of time, and don’t build powerful mathematical ideas during that time.  They are typically focused on number skills.

For instance, one of the Number of the Day templates that I found while Googling had kids write the number using “fancy writing”…now I get that kids need practice writing numerals, but we can do that while also building their number sense.

I’m Christina Tondevold, The Recovering Traditionalist, and in this video I’d like to share with you my take on Number of the Day Activities, in our quest to build our math minds so we can build the math minds of our students.

Watch the video or read the transcript below:

Here are links to products/activities mentioned in this vlog.

Rosalba’s video about Revamping Number of the Day

Dr. Nicki Newton’s book Math Workshop in Action

Number of the Day should focus on Number Sense not just Number Skills

Along with the typical number skills like

• Write the numeral
• Write the word for the number
• Write it in expanded form
• What’s in the tens place, ones place, etc?

Kids need to also be building their number sense.  How does today’s number relate to other numbers?

I’ve put together a few Number of the Day templates that you can download right below this video, but I wanted to share with you about a few of the changes I made in my templates that you won’t usually find in Number of the Day worksheets.

Let kids have choice in Number of the Day activities

Usually the worksheet will tell kids what model to use to draw the quantity.  It will say “show using base-ten blocks”…or it will have a ten frame already drawn in for them to use.  We want kids to have choices so that they can show us what they know and what they prefer.

It’s not just a choice in the drawings they do, here’s an example where I want kids to show the number on a number line…but they have a choice for what benchmark numbers they use.  In this one, a kid could use 300 and 400 as the benchmarks, but it could have been 340 and 350.  What they choose to use as benchmark numbers on their number line tells you about their mathematical understanding.

Teachers need choice when doing Number of the Day activities

Even for teachers, the Number of The Day activities get boring if we do the same tasks every time. And it doesn’t allow you to adjust based upon what you see your students needing to work on. So, on each of the templates I made a copy that has the bottom area blank.  It doesn’t have a prompt for you.  That way you can choose what you want kids to do.

Then after I watched my friend Rosalba’s video (and I HIGHLY suggest you go watch it, I’ll link it) about revamping the Number of the Day activities, I actually decided to give you a completely blank template that you can write in what things you want your students to do.  You could project this up and write it in so you don’t have to make copies all the time.

I also compiled a list of possible prompts you can put into those blank spots.  These come from Rosalba’s video and the list she compiled, based on Dr. Nicki Newton’s book Math Workshop in Action.

So use the link below to request the Number of the Day templates and let me know in the comments if you have any other suggested prompts that I didn’t put in there.

Until next time, I hope this video helped build your math mind so you can build the math minds of your students.

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