The purpose of this activity is to look for patterns in decompositions. The decompositions in the activity are presented in a way to encourage students to look for patterns, such as one addend getting larger while the other gets smaller, and use this information to determine if there are other possible decompositions. When students look for patterns, they look for and make use of structure (MP7). When they write expressions to represent diagrams they reason abstractly and quantitatively (MP2).

• “Did Andre and Priya find all of the ways to break apart the tower of 8 cubes? What makes you think that?” (They could have broken the tower into 6 yellow and 2 blue.)

The purpose of this activity is for students to find all the different decompositions of 7.

• Invite 2–3 groups to share.
• “How do you know you found all the ways to break apart 7?”
• “Did anyone find another way to break apart 7?” 

The purpose of this activity is for students to choose from activities that offer practice with addition and subtraction.

Students choose any previously introduced stage from these centers:

• What’s Behind My Back?
• Check it Off
• Find the Value of Expressions
• Bingo
• Shake and Spill

• “What is one thing from your work in centers today that you would like to continue to get better at?”