May 2021 Free Lesson of the Month - Number Lines and Jump Numbers

​The Brick Math Lesson of the Month for May 2021 deals with number skills that students learn in the earliest grades. From the Counting and Cardinality Using LEGO® Bricks books, this lesson teaches students how to "jump" in their counting, which helps them learn the positions of numbers in relation to other numbers.

As part of our "Year of Brick Math," the free lesson includes the pages from the Teacher and Student books, along with a video of author Dr. Shirley Disseler demonstrating the lesson. To get the May 2021 lesson, "Number Lines and Jump Numbers," and a link to the video lesson, plus a new lesson each month, click here.

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​It's important that children don't just learn to memorize by rote a list of numbers, "1, 2, 3, 4, ...". They need to understand ideas such as 4 is greater than 2, and that when they are counting, each number represents a specific value. This lesson, which utilizes a number line built from bricks, helps students grasp key counting and cardinality concepts.

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Students start by building a 1 - 12 number line along with the teacher. When the number line is made from bricks, it's easy to distinguish between odd and even numbers. It's also easy to count both forward and backward, touching each brick as they say its number. Then students build another number line that starts with 2 and jumps by twos (2, 4, 6, 8, ...). It's a great way to demonstrate what it means to count by twos.

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This lesson is from Chapter 5 of Counting and Cardinality Using LEGO® Bricks in the Brick Math series. Students typically learn this skill in grades K - 1. Try the free lesson with your students to see how much fun it is to learn with Brick Math!

Brick Math is a K-6 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model  11 different math subjects: 
Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions,   Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, and Decimals. It works well for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable.
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If you teach math or have a student at home who is learning math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves student math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. 

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