Grade
K

Math in Our World: How Many Rocks?

Hayden and Charlotte love to collect rocks at the beach. They collected 61 rocks in their bucket, counting as they put each rock in. Then, they collected some more rocks.

A bucket filled with rocks sits on the beach. Someone wrote 61 in the sand in front of the bucket. Beside the bucket, they arranged more rocks in 4 rows. Three rows have 5 rocks and one row has 3 rocks.
  1. What do you notice? What do you wonder?
  2. Use pictures, numbers, or math words to show or tell what you know about the rocks.
  3. What math questions can you ask about the picture? Answer all the questions you can!
  • Did you notice anything written in the sand in front of the bucket? Why do you think it’s written there?
  • Draw a ten-frame to organize and count the number of rocks outside the bucket.
  • Use a hundreds chart to count forward from 61.
A hundreds chart helps you count by 1s from 1 to 100. It has 10 rows, with 10 numbers in each row. The first row has the numbers 1–10. The second row has the numbers 11–20. The third row has the number 31–40. And so on to the last row, which has the numbers 91–100.
  • Draw a number line starting at 61 and count on.
  • Show your work to someone else, and explain your thinking. Did they understand?
  • Ask whether they have any other questions you can answer!

Can you collect other items to count? How could you organize your collection to make it easier to count?

Printable Version

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Reference for Educators

Sample problems and solutions