Ep 15: Choral Counting: Number Sense Routines Series

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As promised, in this episode I'm going to talk about choral counting, which is

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another excellent number sense routine, especially for trickier number sequences

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when kids are counting and pulling out patterns in our number system. And if

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there's one episode where you're going to actually click from the show notes, it

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would be this one to go check out the blog post or the video because you'll

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see what I'm talking about. I have some pictures of what a completed choral

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count might look like and give you some ideas about how to make it work in your

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classroom.

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Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Makes Sense, a podcast for elementary

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teachers, specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an

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impact in the number sense of their students. Last week I talked about

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rote counting and things that you can do to make rote counting a little more

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exciting in your classroom. And one of the things that I really like to include

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is a choral count for trickier number sequences or if they're having a lot of

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trouble specifically writing numbers and getting the order of the numbers

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mixed up, like if they're trying to write 15, writing a 51, choral counting is a

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great way to really draw attention to that and help them make sense of why the

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numbers have that order. Last year I got rid of most of the stuff on my walls.

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Well, number one, because it was hard to put up because I had whiteboards all

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over my room, I also wanted the whiteboards available when we did building

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thinking classroom style tasks and I have a bunch of episodes about that that

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you can go check out and it's a really, really great framework for problem

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solving in kindergarten. But coming back to choral counting, so the only thing

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that I actually lift up all year like I used to have the calendar up all year,

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that kind of thing, my math station chart, all that kind of stuff, I used to have it

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in pocket charts up all year. But this year I got rid of all of that, went digital

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for calendar, went digital for math stations, but what I did not go digital

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with was a hundreds chart. The hundreds chart stayed up all year because it's such

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a valuable tool and when I first started teaching I don't think I realized how

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valuable that tool was. Now the hundreds chart that I used was actually like in

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rainbow order because my students, my team really enjoyed rainbows so it was a

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rainbow order and I feel like that's another reason the kids liked it because

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it was a rainbow and if you are spent any time around kindergartners you know

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that they love rainbows. But one day I don't know why I asked the kids like what

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do you notice about the hundreds chart and do you have any questions about the

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hundreds chart and it sparked really interesting discussions around the

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hundreds chart. Kids were asking me why certain numbers repeat or why this group

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has a ones in front and why the next line has a two in front of each number

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and why the numbers change and why there's zeros like they had really been

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paying more attention to the hundreds chart than I realized and I was like hmm

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that's really interesting. I didn't I wouldn't have thought that they were

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paying that much attention because you know sometimes you're like I just don't

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think that they listen to me at all but they listen more than you think and

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they're paying attention to the most interesting things. So that's when

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choral counting came in because some kids were noticing that patterns ended up

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that way but didn't really know why and some kids just had no idea. So a choral

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count is like it sounds when you're counting together chorally but only in a

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specific range. So you might start at the number eight and go to the number 20

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together. So instead of just counting like eight, nine, ten, eleven what you're

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doing as the teacher is you're writing down the numbers that you're saying so

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you remind your students like don't count too fast because I have to actually

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write down the numbers that we're saying. So when you say eight you write down the

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eight, nine, ten and then go to 20 and from there you'll ask the kids okay we're

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looking at these numbers what do you notice about them. So before you even

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start counting you'll be like okay we're gonna start at eight I want you to think

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about what the next number is so that everybody can join in in the choral count.

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So if we're working with eight so go eight, nine, ten and then stop at 20 and

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from there just give all of the kids some think time to look at the numbers that

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you said, the numbers that you wrote down and have them tell you what you

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noticed. When you're recording your choral count so you've written the numbers

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out and then whatever the kids are calling attention to highlight those. So I

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often like to use a different color. So if a student tells me that they notice

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that there is a repetition of twos like look there's a two there, two there, two

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there, I might circle all of the twos in one color and then right on the side like

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so and so said that they noticed a lot of twos and then go on to the next one

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it's like what else do you notice. Someone else say they might notice that

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there is a lot of ones in the teens like all of those numbers start with one. So

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from there I might circle all of the ones in a different color and write

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student X said that they noticed a lot of ones and then move on to the next

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person so the different colors kind of help the kids visually differentiate

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between the things that their classmates are saying and also helps the kids feel

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like oh I made a contribution if you're writing down what they said in their

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words to encourage more participation also for them to be like oh I did notice

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something different or they had a connection with another student they're

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like oh you notice the twos and I notice the twos too. So recording it

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colorfully and what the kids say can really bring some authenticity and

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meaning to the choral count. With a choral count you could just write the

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numbers horizontally but you might also try and write them vertically if you're

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wanting to pull something different from the numbers. So if I started at 8 and I

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went to 20 and I wrote it horizontally they might start to notice that in 8

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there's an 8 but there's also an 8 in 18 they might notice there's a 9 in 9 and

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also in 19 they might notice that 10 and 20 both have a 0 if they're looking

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right at the end there they might not see necessarily something in the middle

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from the 11 to 18 they might not see anything but if I went vertical instead

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of horizontal so I started at 8 and then 9 and then went to 10 from the top and

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then 11, 12, 13 all the way to 20 then they might see that all of the numbers

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this way vertically the first number is always a 1 and the second number counts

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up and they might say oh I see two twos I see a lot of ones I see this I see that

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and looking at numbers that way like kind of like a microscope on a certain

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number range can really help pull out those notice things that you want kids

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to have and then they might see oh this pattern can be extrapolated or if I ask

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them what do you think the next number might be what is it going to look like

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they can think about the pattern that they saw and then move from there so if

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I stopped at 20 and I was like okay what do you think 21 would look like so if

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they're thinking about it that way they might be hmm well if the 20 is a 2 and a

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0 and I'm looking at 21 I know that the number has to start with a 2 because

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that's the decade we're in and if it's 21 the one comes next or you might ask

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what does 25 look like skipping some numbers and they could use the same

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strategy well it has to start with a 2 and if I'm looking across this way there

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are 5's there so then they can pull out the next number and realize that the

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number sequence is actually a pattern that can help them when they have to

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wrote count or when they have to figure out how to write a number think about

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what the other numbers around it look like planning a coral count can be a

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little bit more time-consuming than planning for a quick image or planning

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for which one doesn't belong this one can take a little more time just because

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you need to really consider what it is you want to focus on when you're planning

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a coral count so you want to decide if you want it to be actually written like

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on chart paper or or on a whiteboard if you want it to be digital what you want

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to call attention to the direction of your numbers that you're writing top to

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bottom are you writing left to right and the range of numbers that you're using

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so a planning sheet for something like that could be helpful I'll have one

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link down below you're also going to want to think about what you're going to

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count so what is the number order that you're going to be working on are you

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going to be focusing on skip counting you can change the way that things are

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oriented to highlight certain numbers and skip counting you might want to

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highlight crossing over a decade if that's tricky or team numbers like I

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used in my example and if you're working with first grade second grade you might

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want to highlight the difference between two digit numbers and three digit

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numbers so you might start at 95 and go to 115 and then focus in on what looks

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different about those numbers like beyond the obvious two digits and three

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digits but also kind of think about wow the number sequence even though I'm

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writing 115 instead of 15 the number sequence is still similar what's

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changing is the number in front which is the hundred so you can really bring in

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discussions about place value that way but the number sequence is still a

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pattern and the pattern continues throughout all of the decades all of the

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centuries I guess and beyond 100,000 so if you're starting from 995 and go to

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1015 so that kids can see the difference between what a three digit number looks

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like four digit number looks like and really focus on that because students

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don't really have as much opportunity to see four digit numbers five digit

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numbers written out so a coral count can really help kids hone in on what they

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look like and start to make the connection between number patterns from

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the simple hunters chart to what it looks like in the thousands to what it

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looks like in the 10,000 and beyond so again please let me know if there's

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anything else you'd like to know about coral counting like I said I'll have the

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link to the blog post some resources that you might like to look at down below

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that you can click on and let me know if you have any questions