doubling – Number Strings

Wondering what a number string looks like in a classroom? Curious about the details of the routine? The following video features site co-founder Rachel Lambert teaching a group of 4th grade students at the Citizens of the World Charter School in Mar Vista, CA. These students have a wonderful classroom teacher, Hayley Roberts, who does number strings regularly with the students as part of a rigorous, inquiry-based mathematics curriculum. Hayley is off camera in Part 1 leading the students in a mathematics mindfulness exercise.

Students in this class had done lots of number strings with the open number line for addition and subtraction, as well as the array as a model for multiplication. On the previous day, the number string had been a multiplication doubling and halving string on the open number line. Today’s number string was designed to help students understand division on the open number line, focused on using equivalence as a strategy. Before you watch, you might want to anticipate how 4th graders might solve these problems, and how Rachel will represent strategies on the open number line.