The Blast-Off Kid

$The Blast-Off Kid book cover$

Grade 3
4 skill lessons

Math

Skill lessons

The mathematics the book carries, taught directly. Printable workbook pages and teacher keys are not available for this book yet.

1Bundle, Bag, Count: Making a Pile Sayable
2Four Bags, Two Bundles, Five Loose
3Four Boxes, One Number
4The Wrapper That Was Worth Four Trades

Math + reading

Math through the reading

The same book, entered through a sentence it prints. Change one word in the reading and the numbers change with it.

No math-through-reading lessons for this book yet.

Reading

Reading and language lessons

The same book read as a text. What a word means in its sentence, how a character is shown, how the writing is put together - no mathematics.

No reading and language lessons for this book yet.

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Skill lessons

4 lessons on the mathematics the book carries. Printable workbook pages and teacher keys are not available for this book yet.

1. Bundle, Bag, Count: Making a Pile Sayable Concept · Grouping ones into tens and tens into hundreds by hand

Jim's collection outgrows counting twice, and the book prints both failures before it prints the repair: the number changes every time he counts, and Everett loses his place in the middle of the bundles. The repair is paperclips and paper bags, ten wrappers to a bundle and ten bundles to a bag. Students run the same repair on their own uncountable pile of paper slips: they fail to count it loose, clip tens, bag hundreds, and end with three lanes they can read at a glance. What they take from it is the exchange itself, felt in the hands - ten of one thing becomes one of the next thing, and the pile stops changing size when you look away.

Full lesson — 20 minutes

1. Try to count the loose pile (5 min)
Take the tub of slips and count them into one pile, no clips and no bags, the way Jim's backpack held them. Stop when the timer goes and say the number you reached. Say it again to the group beside you and say out loud whether your two numbers agree.
Word preview: count, pile
Each time he counted, he got a different number.
I keep losing my place, Everett said.
2. Clip ten slips into a bundle (6 min)
Clip exactly ten slips into every bundle and say ten slips make one bundle as each clip closes. Keep going until fewer than ten slips are loose. Count the loose ones that are left and say how many are still not in a bundle.
Word preview: bundle, ten
I'll use paperclips to put the wrappers in bundles of 10.
Group 10 wrappers make one bundle.
3. Drop ten bundles into a bag (5 min)
Drop exactly ten bundles into each paper bag and say ten bundles make one hundred as the bag fills. Fold the top of every full bag shut. Stop when fewer than ten bundles are left outside the bags.
Word preview: bag, hundred
We can put ten bundles in each bag.
Group 10 bundles make one grocery bag.
4. Say what is left over (4 min)
Set the full bags in the first lane of the mat, the leftover bundles in the second and the loose slips in the third. Point at each lane in turn and say how many are in it. Say which lane you would go to if someone asked you for exactly one hundred slips, and which if they asked for exactly one.
Word preview: loose, left over
There were two bundles and five loose wrappers left over.
Each bag held 100 wrappers.

Short version — 9 minutes

1. Clip ten slips into a bundle (5 min)
Clip exactly ten slips into every bundle, saying ten slips make one bundle as each clip closes. Count the loose ones left and say how many are still not in a bundle.
Word preview: bundle, ten
I'll use paperclips to put the wrappers in bundles of 10.
2. Drop ten bundles into a bag (4 min)
Drop exactly ten bundles into each paper bag and say ten bundles make one hundred as the bag fills. Stop when fewer than ten bundles are left outside the bags, and say how many bundles that is.
Word preview: bag, hundred
We can put ten bundles in each bag.

Three levels

Support: Start from sixty slips instead of four hundred and fifty, so the only exchange is ten slips for one bundle and it happens six times. Keep the clips, the timer and the three-lane mat exactly as they are; the bags stay on the table unused and the third lane stays empty, which is worth saying out loud.
At Grade: Start from about four hundred and fifty slips, make both exchanges, and read the three lanes as bags, bundles and loose slips before saying what would have to happen for a sixth bag to exist.
Extension: Once the three lanes are set, take eighty more slips from the teacher's tub and put them where they belong. Say which lanes changed, whether a new bag was born, and how many more slips it would take to change the first lane again. Then say what number of slips would leave all three lanes with something in them and no lane able to trade.

English learners

The load is the two words for a slip that is not in a group: loose and left over. Neither means lost or unwanted, which is what a child hearing them cold will assume, and left over here is not the leftovers of a meal but the part of a count that did not fill a group. Rehearse the frame Ten ___ make one ___ with a clip in hand, filling the blanks aloud at the moment the clip closes, so the words arrive on the same beat as the trade. Container words in a child's strongest language are welcome for the lanes; invite them, and let a child say ten slips make one bundle in that language first, touching the same clip, before saying it in English.

Materials

Tub of about 450 paper slips per group
Two-minute timer
Paperclips, sixty per group
Paper lunch bags, six per group
Sorting mat with three lanes labelled bags, bundles, loose
Word cards: bundle, loose, left over

Standards & curriculum

These lessons are being matched against curricula now.

2. Four Bags, Two Bundles, Five Loose Fluency · Composing a three- and four-digit number from counts of hundreds, tens and ones

Twice the book stops and reads a collection off its containers, and both times it prints the answer in the next breath: Rachel says four hundred and twenty-five over four bags, two bundles and five loose wrappers, and Jim says six thousand three hundred fifty-four over six trash bags, three grocery bags, five bundles and four loose. Students build each arrangement in blocks and say the one number it makes, then check themselves against the character who says it. The speed being built is the speed of going from named containers to a spoken number without counting anything by ones.

Full lesson — 20 minutes

1. Lay out the Friday count (5 min)
Build the Friday collection on your tray: four hundred-flats for the four bags, two ten-rods for the two bundles, five unit cubes for the loose wrappers. Touch each part and say what it is worth, four hundreds, two tens, five ones. Do not count any cube by ones.
Word preview: hundreds, tens
Soon, they had filled up four bags.
Each bag held 100 wrappers.
2. Say the number and check it against Rachel (5 min)
Slide each part onto the strip under its own word and say the whole number in one breath. Then read what Rachel says and put your thumb up if the two agree. If they do not, find which part of the tray you read wrong and say it again.
Word preview: number
There were two bundles and five loose wrappers left over.
Four hundred and twenty-five wrappers, said Rachel.
3. Add a fourth container (5 min)
Clear the tray and build the garage collection. Six thousand-cubes stand for the six trash bags, three flats for the grocery bags, five rods for the bundles, four units for the loose wrappers. Touch each part in turn and say what it is worth before you say anything about the whole.
Word preview: thousands
They got trash bags and put 10 grocery bags in each one.
When they were done, they had filled 6 trash bags.
4. Say the garage count and check it against Jim (5 min)
Slide the four parts onto the longer strip and say the whole number in one breath, thousands first. Read what Jim says and put your thumb up if the two agree. Then say which single part you would take away to make the number smallest, and say why that part and not another.
Word preview: thousands, ones
They also had 3 grocery bags, 5 bundles and 4 loose wrappers.
That's 6,354 wrappers, Jim said.

Short version — 9 minutes

1. Lay out the Friday count (5 min)
Build the Friday collection on your tray: four hundred-flats for the bags, two ten-rods for the bundles, five unit cubes for the loose wrappers. Touch each part and say what it is worth without counting any cube by ones.
Word preview: hundreds, tens
Soon, they had filled up four bags.
2. Say the number and check it against Rachel (4 min)
Slide each part onto the strip under its own word and say the whole number in one breath. Read what Rachel says and put your thumb up if the two agree.
Word preview: number
Four hundred and twenty-five wrappers, said Rachel.

Three levels

Support: Stay with the Friday collection for the whole lesson and never open the thousand-cubes. Build four bags, two bundles and five loose, say the number, check Rachel, then rebuild it once with the parts handed over in a different order so the saying is practised twice. Three containers is the only load removed; the strip, the tray and the no-counting-by-ones rule all stay.
At Grade: Build both collections, say each number in one breath off the containers, and check each against the character who says it in the book.
Extension: After both numbers are said, take the garage collection and swap the count of thousand-cubes with the count of unit cubes, so six and four change places. Say the new number, say how much of the tray had to move to make it, and say which swap of two parts would change the number least.

English learners

This lesson runs on the container words doing double duty, and that is the difficulty rather than the numbers. A bundle is a thing you can hold and it is also ten, and English lets a child say two bundles when they mean twenty without any word changing shape. Rehearse the frame ___ bags is ___ hundreds aloud with a hand on the flats each time, and keep the second blank spoken rather than written so the two readings stay audibly different. A child who names the containers in their strongest language should do so at the tray first, then say the same sentence in English while touching the same blocks; the tray carries the meaning and the second saying only has to carry the words.

Materials

Hundred-flats, ten-rods and unit cubes, one tray per pair
Number strip marked hundreds, tens, ones
Thousand-cubes, six per pair
Number strip marked thousands, hundreds, tens, ones
Word cards: bundle, hundreds, thousands

Standards & curriculum

These lessons are being matched against curricula now.

3. Four Boxes, One Number Representation · Reading a place value chart and writing the numeral it names

The back of the book prints two charts and then reads each one out loud, digit by digit and then as a whole number: four hundred thirty-seven from three boxes, two thousand one hundred fifty-six from four. That is the book teaching its own notation, and it is the cleanest material in the transcription. Students read those two charts, then fill an empty chart from the garage collection and from the nine-of-everything count in the driveway, and write the numeral each chart names. Reading a chart and writing a number turn out to be the same act done in opposite directions, which is exactly what the book claims on its last page.

Full lesson — 20 minutes

1. Read the book's own three-box chart (4 min)
Put one digit tile in each box of the top three columns to match the book's first chart. Read the boxes aloud left to right, hundreds four, tens three, ones seven. Then say the whole number the three boxes make, and only then read what the book says it is.
Word preview: chart, digit
Charts help you read and write numbers.
Hundreds, four. Tens, three, ones, seven, four hundred, thirty-seven.
2. Read the four-box chart (6 min)
Clear the mat and lay tiles in all four boxes for the book's second chart. Read the four boxes aloud left to right, then say the whole number in one breath. Say out loud which box changed the number most when you laid its tile down, and why that box and not the one beside it.
Word preview: thousands, place
Thousands, two, hundreds, one, tens, five, ones, six, two thousand, one hundred, fifty-six.
3. Fill a chart from the garage collection (6 min)
Nobody has given you a chart this time, only the containers Jim listed. Put one tile in each box for what he had, then write the numeral underneath in your own hand. Check your four digits against the number Jim says, and if a box is wrong say which container you misread.
Word preview: numeral
They also had 3 grocery bags, 5 bundles and 4 loose wrappers.
That's 6,354 wrappers, Jim said.
4. Write the number the nines make (4 min)
The driveway count is read to you in the book's own order and never printed as a numeral. Lay the four tiles, then write the number on a blank card without looking at the mat. Turn the card over and say what would happen to the leftmost box if one more wrapper arrived.
Word preview: thousands, ones
There were nine trash bags, nine grocery bags, nine bundles, and nine loose wrappers.
That means thousands, nine, hundreds, nine, tens, nine, ones, nine.

Short version — 9 minutes

1. Read the book's own three-box chart (4 min)
Put one digit tile in each box of the top three columns to match the book's first chart. Read the boxes aloud left to right, then say the whole number before you read what the book says it is.
Word preview: chart, digit
Hundreds, four. Tens, three, ones, seven, four hundred, thirty-seven.
2. Read the four-box chart (5 min)
Clear the mat and lay tiles in all four boxes for the book's second chart. Read the four boxes aloud, then say the whole number in one breath and say which box changed it most.
Word preview: thousands, place
Thousands, two, hundreds, one, tens, five, ones, six, two thousand, one hundred, fifty-six.

Three levels

Support: Work in the three right-hand boxes only and cover the thousands column with a card, so every number read and written has three digits. Read the book's first chart, then build two more three-box numbers from tiles a partner lays down. The boxes, the tiles and the write-it-yourself step all stay; only the fourth column is out.
At Grade: Read both of the book's charts, fill an empty chart from the containers Jim lists, and write all four numerals in your own hand.
Extension: Take the driveway number and move its leftmost tile to the rightmost box and back. Say what the same digit is worth in each place, and say how many of the right-hand box it takes to equal one of the left-hand box. Then find the two boxes on your mat whose swap would leave the number unchanged, and say why only those two.

English learners

Read and write are the two verbs this lesson turns on, and the book uses them of the same object one sentence apart, which is a gift and also the trap. A chart is read left to right but a number is often built right to left from the containers, so a child following the words in order can lay the tiles in the wrong boxes while doing everything they were told. Rehearse the frame The ___ box says ___ , spoken with a finger in the box, before anybody writes. Column names in a child's strongest language belong on sticky notes above the printed ones; invite them, and let the whole number be said in that language first, since the digits are the same marks in both.

Materials

Four-column chart mat labelled thousands, hundreds, tens, ones, one per pair
Digit tiles, zero to nine, two sets per pair
Dry-erase marker and cloth per pair
Blank number cards, four per pair
Word cards: chart, digit, place

Standards & curriculum

These lessons are being matched against curricula now.

4. The Wrapper That Was Worth Four Trades Reasoning · Regrouping across four places when one is added to nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine

The book's last count is nine of everything: nine trash bags, nine grocery bags, nine bundles, nine loose. Jim opens one more bar and the single wrapper he adds sets off three trades in a row and puts him at ten thousand. Students build the nines in blocks, add one unit cube, and carry out every trade the book carries out, saying what became what each time. Then they put the same one cube into a different count and find it worth one and nothing more, which is the whole point: what a wrapper is worth depends on what is already sitting beside it.

Full lesson — 20 minutes

1. Build nine of everything (5 min)
Build the driveway count on the mat: nine thousand-cubes, nine flats, nine rods, nine units, each in its own lane. Read the four lanes aloud in the book's order. Say what would have to happen for any one lane to hold ten.
Word preview: nine, lane
There were nine trash bags, nine grocery bags, nine bundles, and nine loose wrappers.
That means thousands, nine, hundreds, nine, tens, nine, ones, nine.
2. Add one and make the first trade (6 min)
Put one more unit cube in the ones lane and count that lane. Ten units cannot stay, so trade them for one rod and say ten ones make one ten as you hand them over. Read all four lanes again and say which two changed.
Word preview: trade, ten
He got a galactic grape blast-off bar and tore it open.
That was enough to make a bundle.
3. Follow the trade up the mat (5 min)
Count the tens lane. Trade its ten rods for one flat, then count the hundreds lane and trade again, saying what became what each time. Keep going until no lane holds ten, and read the mat aloud when it stops.
Word preview: trade, hundreds
Now he had ten bundles.
Now he had ten grocery bags.
4. Say why one wrapper did so much (4 min)
Clear the mat and build six thousand three hundred fifty-four instead. Put the same one unit cube in and say how many trades it causes now. Finish the sentence strip out loud for both counts, and say what has to be true of a count before one cube can move four lanes.
Word preview: worth
Now he had ten trash bags.
I have ten thousand wrappers!

Short version — 9 minutes

1. Add one and make the first trade (5 min)
Nine of everything is already built on your mat. Put one more unit cube in the ones lane, count it, and trade the ten units for one rod, saying ten ones make one ten as you hand them over. Read all four lanes and say which two changed.
Word preview: trade, ten
That was enough to make a bundle.
2. Follow the trade up the mat (4 min)
Count the tens lane and trade its ten rods for one flat, then count the hundreds lane and trade again, saying what became what each time. Stop when no lane holds ten and read the mat aloud.
Word preview: trade, hundreds
Now he had ten bundles.

Three levels

Support: Build nine rods and nine units only, so the mat has two lanes and one trade waits at the end of it. Add the one cube, make the single trade, and say what became what. Then say what the mat would need in a third lane before a second trade could happen; the saying stays, only the height of the mat comes down.
At Grade: Build all four lanes at nine, add one unit cube, and carry out every trade the count forces, saying what became what each time and reading the mat when it stops.
Extension: Find every count below ten thousand where one more cube would cause exactly two trades, and say what all of them have in common. Then say what the mat would need for one cube to cause no trade at all, and give a count from the book that behaves that way.

English learners

Trade is the verb, and it is not the trade of swapping snacks, which is the meaning most children meet first. Here nothing is exchanged between two people and nothing is given up: ten of one thing is handed over and one of the next thing comes back, and the amount on the mat never changes. Rehearse the frame Ten ___ make one ___ with the cubes actually in the hand at the moment of the swap, and say it once more over the finished mat so the child hears that the total did not move. A child whose strongest language has its own word for this exchange should say it in that language as the cubes change lanes, and then say the English frame over the same cubes.

Materials

Four-lane place mat, one per pair
Nine thousand-cubes, nine flats, nine rods and nine units per pair
One spare unit cube per pair
Trade tray between each pair
Sentence strip reading One more made ___ into ___
Word cards: trade, regroup, worth

Standards & curriculum

These lessons are being matched against curricula now.