Who's Counting?

Imagine this:  Students are learning about adding and subtracting positive integers.  A few have prior knowledge working with thermometers or bank accounts that involve positive and negative integers.  The rest of the class looks hungry for a way to learn with their hands and eyes.  Out comes the bucket filled with counters, red and blue disc shaped counters.  Aha... the lesson takes off and students are seeing the negative numbers represented by blue counters and positive numbers represented by red counters. 


The magic of having the red and blue counters in front of each student makes it so much easier to teach the concept of adding and subtracting positive and negative integers.  The students can see how to pair up the counters and figure out easily what the sum or difference is with their counters.  I think using counters is a great way to learn and explore math.  Students that may not jump right into the lesson are suddenly excited to try another problem and use their counters.  Once the concept is understood students will not need counters to figure out problems because they have practiced enough with the counters and it makes sense after all the practice.  Adding positive and negative integers using red and blue counters is taught well by two 7th grade students.

I have worked with students in small groups that noticed how much using counters helped them.  The combination of having something in their hands to work with and seeing math represented by things really helped.  I could see when the concepts clicked for them as they were using the counters.  We had tried paper pencil pictures to represent the same lesson and it was not as clear to some students.  Keep the counters close and use them often! 

Try the game called, Marble Math that uses marbles as counters to add and subtract.