Numbers 1–10

Strand: Number
Outcomes: 3, 4, 5

Step 4: Assess Student Learning

Guiding Questions

Look back at what you determined as acceptable evidence in Step 2.
What are the most appropriate methods and activities for assessing student learning?
How will I align my assessment strategies with my teaching strategies?

Sample Assessment Tasks

In addition to ongoing assessment throughout the lessons, consider the following sample activities to evaluate students' learning at key milestones. Suggestions are given for assessing all students as a class or in groups, individual students in need of further evaluation and individual or groups of students in a variety of contexts.

A. Whole Class/Group Assessment

Note: Performance-based assessment tasks are under development.

Show examples of different pairs of sets of objects; e.g., show two sets of eight, two sets of nine, two sets of six. Ask students to find the pairs that match. Make sure that a few pairs are not equivalent so that you can ask them to identify mistakes. Use large stickers or illustrations when showing these to the whole group.
Give each student numeral cards from 1 to 10. Ask them to match the 10 numerals with corresponding sets of numbers. Show sets of up to 10 items and ask them to hold up the corresponding numeral card. You can also hold up dot cards with the numbers from 1 to 10. Also, ask students individually to set out their numeral cards from 1 to 10 and from 10 to 1.
Using the ten frames individually, ask them to all show you a number you announce to the class. Walk around and see if they have the correct number of corresponding dots.
Give two different representations of sets of up to ten. Ask students which has more and which has less.

B. One-on-One Assessment

Assessment activities can be used with individual students, especially students who may be having difficulty with the outcome.

Ask a student to print a numeral between 1 and 10 and draw a set of objects that corresponds to that numeral. Repeat for several different numbers.
Have a student roll a set of two dice and build a set with manipulatives to represent the number on the dice.
Ask a student to count on from a given number up to 10 and do the same thing counting backward from 10. Ask, "What comes next?" when you say a number. Show him or her a numeral and ask him or her to clap that many times. You can clap and ask the student to point to the numeral on a piece of paper.
Show a student 10 counters. Ask him or her to count four and cover them with his or her hand. Ask, "How many did you hide?" and then have him or her count on from this number (four) up to 10.
Give the student five interlocking cubes. Ask, "How many would you have if there were two more?" and "How many would you have if there was one less?"
Give the student a tower of four cubes and another tower of seven cubes. Ask, "Which is closer to 10?" and then ask, "How do you know?" Have the student tell you, "Which is closer to five?" and "How do you know?" Allow him or her to use more interlocking cubes to rebuild the tower or build a new tower if he or she needs a while to figure out this problem.

C. Applied Learning

Provide opportunities for students to use their number strategies in a practical situation and notice whether or not the strategies transfer.

For each of the numbers from 1 to 10, ask students to use it in a sentence about themselves; e.g., "I am five years old." or "I have 10 fingers." or "I have two eyes."
Play true or false with students. Choose sentences that are relevant to their lives and have them correct the false sentences to make them true; e.g., "We have had five days this month.", "We have 10 boxes of paper in our classroom.", "We have three balls to play with at recess.", "We have six recesses every day.", "There are seven windows in our classroom.", "There are five zoos in Calgary."
This weekend, count how many people you see wearing uniforms. Make a chart to show what you saw each day of the weekend.

Related Resources

Assessment in the Mathematics