The purpose of this task is to help students understand the connection between counting and cardinality. Thus, oral counting and recording the number in digit form are the most important aspects of this activity. However, teachers can extend this by making a bar graph about how many students are wearing the color each day.

CSDE Model Curricula Quick Start GuideEquitable and Inclusive Curriculum  The CSDE believes in providing a set of conditions where learners are repositioned at the center of curricula planning and design. Curricula, from a culturally responsive perspective, require intentional planning for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the development of units and implementation of lessons. It is critical to develop a learning environment that is relevant to and reflective of students’ social, cultural, and linguistic experiences to effectively connect their culturally and community-based knowledge to the class. Begin by connecting what is known about students’ cognitive and interdisciplinary diversity to the learning of the unit. Opposed to starting instructional planning with gaps in students’ knowledge, plan from an asset-based perspective by starting from students’ strengths. In doing so, curricula’s implementation will be grounded in instruction that engages, motivates, and supports the intellectual capacity of all students.Course Description:  In Kindergarten, instructional time should focus on two critical areas: (1) representing and comparing whole numbers, initially with sets of objects; (2) describing shapes and space. More learning time in Kindergarten should be devoted to number than to other topics. Upon completion of this course students will have the ability to: Know number names and the count sequence. Count to tell the number of objects. Compare numbers. Understand addition as putting together and adding to and understand subtraction as taking apart and taking from. Work with numbers 11-19 to gain foundations for place value. Describe and compare measurable attributes. Classify objects and count the number of objects in each category.Identify and describe shapes. Analyze, compare, create, and compose shapes. Aligned Core Resources:Core resources is a local control decision.  Ensuring alignment of resources to the standards is critical for success.  There are tools that are available to assist in evaluating alignment, such as CCSSO’s Mathematics Curriculum Analysis Project and Student Achievement Partner’s Instructional Materials Evaluation Tool.  In addition EdReports and Louisiana Believes are two sources of completed reviews for a variety of resources.  Connecticut is currently working on providing additional alignment guidance for the most frequently used resources across the state. Aligned Core Programs:  The CSDE in partnership with SERC has engaged with providers of high-quality vetted resources to provide additional alignment guidance to the CSDE model curriculum.  High-quality instructional resources are critical for improving student outcomes. The alignment guidance is intended to clarify content and support understanding for clear implementation and coherence. Materials selection is a local control decision and these documents have been provided from participating publishers to assist districts in implementation. Use of the materials from these publishers is not required. These aligned core programs meet expectations as reported by EdReports. If your resource is not listed below, you are encouraged to review EdReports to ensure the alignment of your resource to the Connecticut Core Standards. Strong alignment of curricula and instructional materials have the potential to support student engagement of meaningful grade level content daily and teacher growth.  enVisions Grade KEureka Grade KImagine Learning Illustrative Mathematics Grade Ki-Ready Classroom Mathematics Grade KHMH Into Math Grade KFinancial Literacy Connections:The State of Connecticut is committed to implementing high-quality Financial Literacy instruction at all grade levels beginning in kindergarten. Financial Literacy supports students’ academic performance in several subject areas. The K-5 Model Math Curricula embeds tasks that align the mathematical content and skill to the essential Financial Literacy concepts such as income, spending, saving, investing, credit and risk. The concepts contained in the learning tasks are designed to be rich, hands-on activities with developmentally appropriate real-world connections.  The tasks are identified by grade level and embedded in the appropriate units so that students can demonstrate mastery of what they need to know and be able to do by the end of their K-5 school experience. In this way, elementary students will be prepared to build upon Financial Literacy knowledge as they advance through middle and high school.Additional Course Information:  Major work of Kindergarten mathematics focuses on addition and subtraction – concepts, skills, and problem solving; place value. Fluencies expected for Kindergarten include: Add/subtract within 5 Habits of Mind/SEIH/Transferable Skills Addressed in the Course: The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe the thinking processes, habits of mind, and dispositions that students need to develop a deep, flexible, and enduring understanding of mathematics. They describe student behaviors, ensure an understanding of math, and focus on developing reasoning and building mathematical communication. Therefore, the following should be addressed throughout the course: Make sense of problems & persevere in solving them Reason abstractly & quantitatively Construct viable arguments & critique the reasoning of others Model with mathematics Use appropriate tools strategically Attend to precision Look for & make use of structure Look for & express regularity in repeated reasoning 

This task gives students another way to practice counting and gain fluency with connecting a written number with the act of counting. This task should be introduced by the teacher and would then be a good independent center.

The most engaging way to practice counting with students is to have them count meaningful things in their lives. Since five-year-olds are very focused on themselves this is easily done by allowing them to count themselves, their friends and objects within the classroom that relate to their daily lives.

This task aims to give students practice counting and recording the given number on quantities up to 20.

Module 1 of the Kindergarten curriculum in A Story of Units.  In Topics A and B, classification activities allow students to analyze and observe their world and articulate their observations.  Reasoning and dialogue begin immediately.  In Topics C, D, E, and F, students order, count, and write up to ten objects to answer “how many?” questions from linear, to array, to circular, and finally to scattered configurations wherein they must devise a path through the objects as they count.  In Topics G and H, students use their understanding of relationships between numbers and know that each successive number name refers to a quantity that is one greater and that the number before is one less.

**NOTE: The New York State Education Department shut down the EngageNY website in 2022. In order to maintain educators' access, nearly all resources have been uploaded to archive.org and the resource links above have been updated to reflect their new locations.**

This counting activity is done in pairs and helps reinforce the concepts of greater than, less than, and equal to.