Counting a Collection of 101 – How Did You Count Them?

Counting Collections is an activity rooted in sense-making and joy. It invites students to count a collection of objects, talk to a partner about how they counted and then draw/represent their collection on paper.

In this video, a collection of 101 markers—ten packs of ten markers each and one extra—is intentionally chosen. The teacher poses the question “How many do we have all together?” and then guides two children through three layers of engagement, thinking about the amount in this collection.

The first layer of understanding is concrete, as students are encouraged to manipulate the objects in the collection. The next layer of sense-making is talk, as in “Why do you think we should count by 10’s?” The children share their thinking and come to an agreement that 101 is the total amount. This is where most counting activities end, but in Counting Collections we then ask children to represent their collection on paper. This is the third layer of understanding, a pictorial or symbolic representation of their collections. In the video this sparks a deeper conversation “How many 10’s are in 100?” Students now are engaged in concepts of unitizing and their thinking about this quantity has become a rich learning experience.