EARLY CHILDHOOD CORNER

Janice Novakowski

Developing Five-ness
in Kindergarten

n the early primary grade classroom, significant

time is dedicated to developing number sense.
Number sense is much more than being able
to write numerals, count a quantity of objects, or
recognize a set of a specific quantity of objects.
Number sense is knowing, for example, what five
is in a variety of contexts and representations. The
essence of understanding five-ness is understanding what the symbol 5 indicates and how five can be
represented and visualized in different ways.
As suggested by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM 2000), students in
prekindergarten through grade 2 should come to
understand whole numbers in many ways. Teachers
are encouraged to provide experiences that, among
other goals, help students
develop a sense of whole numbers and represent
and use them in flexible ways, including relating, composing, and decomposing numbers;
[and]
connect number words and numerals to the
quantities they represent, using various physical
models and representations. (p. 78)
Five is an essential benchmark number for young
students, and a strong understanding of five will
contribute to their understanding of ten, another
significant benchmark number in our number system. Ma (1999) and Van de Walle and Lovin (2006)
emphasize the importance of understanding the
decomposition of ten in higher-level operations.
The importance of five is also reflected in current
Janice Novakowski, jnovakowski@richmond.sd38.bc.ca, is a primary grade teacher in Richmond, British Columbia, and also works with preservice teachers at the University of British
Columbia. Her doctoral studies focus on the role of context in mathematics teaching and
learning.
Edited by Andrew M. Tyminski, atyminski@purdue.edu, assistant professor of mathematics
education at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. Early Childhood Corner addresses
the early childhood teachers need to support young childrens emerging mathematical understandings and skills in a context that conforms with current knowledge about the way that
children in prekindergarten and kindergarten learn mathematics. Readers are encouraged to
send submissions to this department by accessing tcm.msubmit.net. Manuscripts should not
exceed eight double-spaced typed pages.

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teacher resources that include five-frames alongside the more common ten-frames.
This article will look at the types of experiences
in early primary classrooms that promote number
sense through composition and decomposition of
whole numbers, specifically the number five. During my work over two months with my kindergarten class, I examined the ways in which a variety
of experiences either support students understanding of five or inhibit their ability to represent the
number in a variety of ways. I wanted to explore
different instructional approaches and contexts and
examine what experiences contributed the most to
students awareness of parts of five and supported
them in their recordings of five.

Experiences with Five

At the beginning of the school year, I asked my kindergarteners to record what they knew about five.
Many of them were able to say, I am five! but
wondered how to record this fact. Some students
drew five objects, and some drew or traced the
fingers on one hand to represent five (see fig. 1). At
this time, only one student recorded the numeral 5.
Most of the students were able to count to twenty
and demonstrated one-to-one correspondence when
counting sets of up to ten objects. After this initial
assessment, we proceeded to explore five in many
ways. During the time we worked on this study of
five, the students were regularly asked to record and
represent what they knew about five.

Building
One of the first experiences the students had with
making five was using snap cubes (Unifix cubes).
The students counted out five cubes and were asked
to show different ways to make five (see fig. 2).
They grouped the cubes in different combinations
and then were asked to read themfor example,
Two and two and one make five. I would occasionally stop the group and ask a particular student
to read and share his or her combination for five.
Using this approach, the students learned from
Teaching Children Mathematics / November 2007

Copyright 2007 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc. www.nctm.org. All rights reserved.
This material may not be copied or distributed electronically or in any other format without written permission from NCTM.

Photograph by Janice Novakowski; all rights reserved

little towers, in rows, or on their fingers, the order

of the parts seemed significant for them. As they
shared their combinations, they seemed sure that
their way was unique. As we recorded their ideas
on a chart, we represented them as both drawings
and numbers. When the students saw the same set
of numbers being represented by the drawings of
the cubes (even if the arrangement was different),
they commented, We already have that one!
When the students saw the numeric notation, many
were able to see that the combination of cubes was
the same, even if the numbers were in a different
order.
Another building experience involved using
wooden craft sticks. The students each counted
out five craft sticks and then were asked to make
designs or pictures with them (see figs. 3a and 3b).
The students enjoyed the creative aspect of this
task, and many tried to make familiar objects such
as houses, flowers, and animals with their sticks.
The sticks seemed to encourage more flexibility in
the students representations and the stories they
constructed about what they had made. The students
described their designs in both words and numbers
and read them as they had the snap cubes. This
task was particularly effective in having students
look at multiple parts of five. I think the nature of
the sticks and the use of them to make pictures

Figure 1
Student representations of five through
hand tracings and drawn objects

one another and came up with a variety of ways to

model five, including two-, three-, four-, and fivepart models, such as 3 and 2 or 2 and 2 and 1.
I revisited this task a few times over a week with
the students, building on previous experiences by
recording their different combinations on a class
chart. There were animated discussions about
whether the combination 1, 2, and 2 was the same
as or different from the combination 2, 1, and 2.
Because the students often stacked their cubes in
Teaching Children Mathematics / November 2007

227

Figure 2

Photograph by Janice Novakowski; all rights reserved

Students showing different combinations

of cubes that make five

Photograph by Janice Novakowski; all rights reserved

Figure 3
Two ways that the students used wooden craft sticks to make
designs representing five
b.
a.

rhyme in his books but with a twist by substituting

different animals, such as five little bats flying
in the night. I read many of these books to the
students, and they often joined in, chanting along
with the patterned text. We read the mathematics
in the illustrations (i.e., There are 3 monkeys on
the bed and 2 on the floor.) and occasionally used
snap cubes to represent what was happening in the
story.
Reading the mathematics in the illustrations
provides another visual model for students, another
way to see five and something that they can hold
on to when they attempt to represent five by drawing or building. Other books we enjoyed included
Crewss Ten Black Dots (1995), for which the
students created their own pictures using five blue
dots (see figs. 5 and 6). In their own pictures, the
students read the five dots in a variety of ways and
were able to see different one-, two-, three-, four-,
and five-part ways of looking at five in their pictures. We read Tangs Math Fables (2004), beginning at the story for one and continuing up to five.
After reading the story for four, I asked students to
predict what combinations the book would show for
five. The students suggested the two-part combinations for five, possibly because the book showed
only two-part combinations for four.

Pretend contexts

opened up more possibilities for the students to

read different number combinations. Also, the students could easily record the number of craft sticks
on paper by drawing lines, thus enabling everyone
in the class to be successful in representing at least
one way to make five (see fig. 4).

Literature
Many childrens books published today support
mathematical understanding and concept development. In particular, books based on traditional
songs and stories often involve the use of five. The
students in my class were excited to read Christelows (2000) series of books based on the traditional chant Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the
Bed. Metzger (2004) has also used this traditional
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Twice during our ongoing study of five, when it was

time to record on paper, I divided the class into two
mixed groups. One group of students was asked to
record what they knew about five. The other group
was provided with a pretend context for recording
five. Using pretend contexts is a common instructional approach in primary classrooms. Students
are asked to imagine or pretend that, for example,
the blocks they are working with are apples or
animals. Many teachers believe that this approach
helps make the mathematics more real for the
students. I wanted to deliberately use this approach
to see how my class would handle this approach.
On the first occasion, I asked the students in the
second group to pretend that they had five pieces of
Halloween candy and to think about all the different ways they could make five with the pieces. The
second time, I asked this group to think back to the
Five Little Monkeys song and story and recall the
different groupings of monkeys.
In both instances, the students in the second
group, who were using the pretend contexts
(which I had thought would support them), were
able to record only one or two representations of
Teaching Children Mathematics / November 2007

that a number is not just a set quantity or group of

objects.

Figure 4
Student recordings of five through craft
stick representations

Students Comments
Near the end of our exploration of five, I asked the
students what experiences helped them understand
five. I asked them to recall what they thought of
when I asked them to record what they knew about
five and the different ways to make it.
I remember building them with blocks.
I look at pictures [in the class] to
remember.
I sing Five Little Monkeys.
I see the blocks in my head and draw them.
(See fig. 7.)
The sticks were good because there were
different ways, like 1, 1, 1, 1, and 1 and other
designs.
I think of five balls and move them around.

five. When working within the Halloween candy

context, the children spent considerable time
deciding on and drawing five candies instead of
thinking about combinations for five. The Five
Little Monkeys context was also limiting because
the students mostly drew just one combination for
five, and it was always a two-part representation
(3-2 or 4-1), because this was the model in the
song and the book. Although I had asked again for
the students to show as many ways as they could
to make five, the contexts I provided for support
at the time instead seemed to constrain the openendedness of the task.

Many students recalled specific classroom

experiences, most of which involved the building
activities. The students referred to the concrete
experiences during which they physically manipulated objects, moved them into subgroups, and then
read their combinations for five. The students
comments suggested that they were able to visualize and refer to mental images of these objects
when they discussed their strategies.

Discussion
As the students engaged in the range of experiences that allowed them to explore five, the
importance of being able to use mental strategies
and subitize became clear (Kline 1998). Clements
(1999) defines subitizing as instantly seeing how
many, an ability he feels plays a significant role
in childrens development of mental computational
strategies. Many kindergarteners continue to count
by one instead of subitizing, but the ability to subitize plays a significant role in their developing ability to understand number. To understand five-ness,
students need to understand the parts of five. By
composing and decomposing numbers, they look at
the parts that make the whole.
Current teacher resources often refer to such
relationships as part-part-whole relationships, but I
prefer the term parts-whole relationship, because it
does not suggest that a number is made up of only
two parts. Many authors, including Van de Walle
(2006), agree that focusing on a quantity in terms
of its parts has important implications for developing number sense (p. 48). Students need to see
Teaching Children Mathematics / November 2007

Figure 5

Photograph by Janice Novakowski; all rights reserved

After reading Ten Black Dots (Crews 1995), the

students created their own dot pictures based
on the story.

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Figure 6
Dot pictures representing five

Figure 7
Students drawings convey their mathematical thinking as they composed and
decomposed 5.

Conclusion

As our exploration continued during the fall term,

the students demonstrated an ability to record a
wider variety of combinations of five. Most of
their drawings involved lines (depicting sticks) or
squares (depicting snap cubes), and some students
began recording what they read in the picture by
writing 3 and 1 and 1. I have always intuitively
believed that providing a context in mathematics
helps make the mathematics more meaningful and
purposeful for students. Although the kindergarteners found the songs, stories, and pretend contexts
engaging, I question how these contexts contributed
to their understanding of the mathematical concepts
we were exploring. I did find that the students
were able to hold on to visual images (pictures in
childrens literature) or use their building experiences (with blocks and sticks) to support them
when recording their representations of five. This
observation is supported by British Columbias
Early Numeracy Project (British Columbia Ministry of Education 2003): Spatial activities involving
hands-on experiences provide the sensory input that
helps to develop mental imagery (p. 5).
In my work with this group of kindergarten
students, I observed that the more we worked with
five, the better able they were able to subitize small
groups (e.g., 2, 3) within a group of five objects
or images, instead of counting by one for each
subgroup. Many of these students commented that
they saw five things in their heads, suggesting
that they were able to manipulate and decompose
their mental images. Developing this mental imagery afforded them a means of thinking flexibly
about five. Over time, as the students shared and
read their different arrangements, all developed
a broader repertoire of how to make five. After a
few weeks of developing five-ness, most of these
students were able to record and read many ways to
make five (see fig. 8), including a variety of multipart combinations. As we investigate other numbers, including ten, it is my hope that students will
build on what they have learned and experienced
during their study of five-ness.

References
British Columbia Ministry of Education. Supporting
Early Numeracy. Victoria, BC: British Columbia
Ministry of Education, 2003.
Clements, D. Subitizing: What Is It? Why Teach It?
Teaching Children Mathematics 5 (March 1999):
400405.
Kline, K. Kindergarten Is More Than Counting. Teach230

Teaching Children Mathematics / November 2007

ing Children Mathematics 5 (October 1998): 8487.

Ma, L. Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).
Principles and Standards for School Mathematics.
Reston, VA: NCTM, 2000.
Van de Walle, John, and L. H. Lovin. Teaching StudentCentered Mathematics: Grades K3. Boston: Pearson
Education, 2006.

Figure 8
After developing an understanding of
five-ness, students are able to read and
record a variety of multipart combinations.

Childrens Literature
Christelow, Eileen. Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the
Bed. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2000.
. Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree. New York:
Scholastic Inc., 2000.
. Five Little Monkeys Wash the Car. New York:
Scholastic Inc., 2000.
Crews, Donald. Ten Black Dots. Toronto: Harper Collins
Canada, 1995.
Metzger, Steve. Five Little Bats Flying in the Night. Illustrated by Laura Bryant. New York: Scholastic Inc.,
2004.
. Five Little Sharks Swimming in the Sea. Illustrated
by Laura Bryant. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2004.
Tang, Greg. Math Fables. Illustrated by Heather Cahoon.
New York: Scholastic Press, 2004.
. Math for All Seasons. Illustrated by Harry Briggs.
New York: Scholastic Inc., 2002. s

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