Odd or Evil?

I remember when I was introducing my class to odd and even numbers some years back a parent told me that her son had come home and told her that he felt really sorry for some numbers that I had told him were "EVIL"!!!  He wondered what they had done that was so wrong!  Oh whoops - sometimes it makes you rethink how you teach things and certainly how some children hear or put it into their schema of things.

So with the prospect of revisiting odd and even numbers for some children and introducing them to others in my small maths group I have decided we will use these little toadstool cards to count spots and decide if they show an odd number or EVEN number of spots.  We might use the colouring method where a child has a different colour pencil in each hand and colours two spots at a time - if they find they can do this to all spots then that number of spots is even - if they find they end up with one spot left it is odd!  This also helps with hand eye co-ordination and fine motor skills.  For others we will be placing counters on the spot and then matching them into pairs to see if the number is odd or even - if each counter has a friend it is even - if it doesn't they are odd.  We will be looking at spotting patterns so that the children begin to learn that any number ending in 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 is odd and any number ending in 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 is even but I realise this will probably take a lot longer than the week we have.

If you'd like to have a copy of the cards then click on the picture below.  They can be enlarged or reduced according to the needs of the children you are using them with.  I know in my small group that I will be using at least three different sizes!!

I will also be using numicon in my lessons as this is an invaluable tool to help children "see" maths.

You can use this link to download some useful resources from their website

http://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/oxed/primary/maths/numicon/Numicon_pcms_Odd_and_Even_Numicon_Shapes,_Numeral_and_Number_Words_1-10.pdf?region=international

 If I have time, I might create some toadstool clipart too - would anyone be interested?  Have a lovely weekend and relax :-)