Gingerbread Composing Activity

One of my favorite concepts to teach my kinders in math is composing and decomposing numbers. If you're not familiar with the term, it simply references how numbers are made by combining different quantities. It's foundational number sense that builds over the school year to eventually being able to add and subtract (or join and separate).

What I enjoy about it is that you can see how students begin to make connections and for them to demonstrate how numbers are created. At the beginning of the year, we begin with composing numbers to 5, then to 10, and at the end of the year we jump up to 20. It's very cool to see how this progression allows students to become little number experts and truly understand how numbers represent quantities and that we can manipulate those quantities in different ways.

...but anyways...

One activity I enjoy doing with them around the holidays is this gingerbread composing craftivity!

Gingerbread Composing

Sorry, it's not a great photo, but here's an example of one of my student's work.

I use this activity after we've spent a lot of time building upon the understanding of number sense to 10. We spend weeks learning how to represent, count, compare, and write numbers in different ways. Then, as a means to have students show off what they've learned they complete this fun and engaging craftivity!

Students are provided a set of 10 gingerbreads that are both boys and girls. They are to select a quantity of each to compose numbers of their choice from 5-10. I encourage students to think about the different "number pairs" or "number partners" that we've discussed in previous lessons when composing. It helps them stretch their understanding beyond the easy peasy number pairs like 5 and 5 make 10. 

Words vs Symbols

To finish, my students must complete the solution statement that describes the number they're composing. In my district, we use the phrase: "____ and _____ make ______" and not the symbols. We move towards working with the symbols at the end of the year as to make the link between building numbers to addition. 

I see a lot of great resources on TpT and other teacher blogs, but rarely do I see "and" and "make" being used. So, I've included both versions just because I know different classrooms use different verbiage to describe composing. 

I've seen teachers get super creative with this activity by adding foil to the background to make it look like the gingerbreads are baked on a cookie sheet. So cute!

In addition to the gingerbreads, I've also included marshmallows to represent the same concept of composing to 10. Simply choose the activity that best suits your learners.