NumberSense Mental Arithmetic Stage 2

The NumberSense Mental Arithmetic series consists of five booklets (Stage 1 to Stage 5). The stages are not age or grade related. Rather, they represent a journey of increasing challenge.

Children should be working in the booklet that is best suited to their confidence level. Ideally, they should be able to complete all 25 items in a task in under five minutes.

There are 64 tasks of 25 items in each booklet. Within each task, the questions are arranged in sets of five items. Each set of five items is designed to reveal the application of one or more strategies.

In the classroom context:

  • Children will open the booklet to the task of the day.
  • The teacher will set the pace by reading out each item as the children enter their responses only. Absolutely no written working out is needed or expected.
  • After completing the task, the teacher will reflect on the responses of the children with them. After reviewing every set of five items, the teacher will ask questions
    such as “What did you notice?” and “How did this help you to complete the task?”. This reflection is the most important part of the activity. By reflecting on the structure and patterns in each set of five items, the teacher supports the development of logical thinking and problem-solving skills in general.
  • After reviewing the task, children will record the number of correct responses, and the number of items attempted in the task. With time, we expect both the number of correct responses (accuracy), and the number of items attempted (fluency) to increase.
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