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When out and about shopping a while back, I spotted the following seed packets for sale. After reading the instructions, I chanced a few packets, and WOW, you should see my learning garden!

Instructions to the ‘Gardener Teacher’: if you are looking for a new hybrid seed pedagogy to plant in among your pupils, then you’ll do no better than these colourful Six Bricks seeds. When these babies flower, you’ll be rewarded with rich displays of learning!

Plant Name: SIX BRICKS

Propagated by: Mr. Brent Hutcheson

Colour: VARIOUS

When to plant: ANYTIME

Where to plant: ANY CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT, ANYWHERE

Climate: INDOORS / OUTDOORS

Growing Season: ALL YEAR

Tolerance: HARDY ANNUALS

Fruit: ABUNDANT - ALL YEAR AROUND

Fruit Variety: SKILLS

Rated: 10/10

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Teaching Teen Numbers / Tens & Units with Six Bricks

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Teaching Teen Numbers / Tens & Units with Six Bricks

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We need to teach our students about the ‘teen’ numbers. There are important maths concepts that we need to highlight when exploring the ‘teens’ i.e. thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen……

Six Bricks again come to the fore here as we can build a ten stack for the ‘ten’ and have individual bricks for the ‘units’.

So, with discussion, children come to understand 14 as 1 ten and 4 units.

19 can be represented as 1 ‘ten’ and 9 ‘units’.

We can also illustrate / demonstrate how 19 becomes 2 tens and 0 units, when we added 1 more unit.

The rule is that units transform into or are exchanged for a ‘ten’ when there are 10 of them to lock in!

We also use Grobby’s Ten Frame to illustrate 14 as 1 Ten 4 Units, by physically standing bricks upright.

Is it little wonder that Six Bricks are the ‘wonder resource’ that are being embraced by classrooms across Ireland, with teachers piling into our online training.

See upcoming summer course starting July 3 - 2023 to August 18 at www.cpdcollege.com

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Make a 7 with Six Bricks + Tell a ‘7’ Story

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Make a 7 with Six Bricks + Tell a ‘7’ Story

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This is an excerpt from a lesson from my book: ‘Teaching Mathematics with Six Bricks in Senior Infants’.

Learning outcomes

We are learning to recognise and form number 7

We are learning to use mathematical language in the correct context

We are learning that number 7 exists beyond simple counting e.g. on signs, clocks, busses, doors etc.

Making up number stories is great fun for children aged 4 to 6. Here’s one for 7, but you can replicate this idea for the other numbers 1 to 10. The child makes a number 7 out of 6 bricks and then role plays the story in very dramatic fashion, acting out all the steps, and incorporating the '7' that he/she has in his/her hand!

It was the 7th of September.

Alice, aged 7 years, went with her mum to visit her granny

Her granny lives at number 7 Main Street.

At 7 o’clock, she went down to the Number 7 bus-stop.

She got on the number 7 bus to granny’s house.

She knocked on the door that had a big number 7 sign.

Granny Margaret opened the door with a big 7cm smile on her face.

Alice was very happy to see granny and then she gave each of granny’s dogs a big hug.

Guess how many dogs granny had? Yes, 7

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Six Bricks – The Foundation Stones for Mathematics

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Six Bricks – The Foundation Stones for Mathematics

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Did you know that Six Bricks are the perfect manipulative with which to explore, teach and problem solve within the Six Domains of mathematics?

At Six Bricks Education we are laying down 6 bricks as the 6 foundation stones upon which the New Primary Mathematics Curriculum for Ireland will be built.

……. and so, it has been spoken:

“Upon these Six Bricks, shall we will build our curriculum.”

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Take a moment to consider what you think is the story behind the picture above?

The actual story of the picture above is as follows:

In our class we are working on the concept of subtraction within 10. After working on subtraction stories, I asked the children in their groups of 4 to create a story with their combined sets of 24 bricks that could illustrate 7-3=4

This group said: “teacher, on farmer Tom’s farm there is a little small field. There is a big tall tree, this big, big tree is growing on the ditch down in the corner of the field. In the field there were 7 sheep. But the farmer drove out of the field on his big tractor brr brrrr brrrr brrrr, but he forgot to close the gate and 3 sheep got out of the field. There are now just 4 sheep left in the field. I hope he comes back soon or they’ll be gone far off over the mountain.”

Teacher Note: Six Bricks can be a ‘representative material’ i.e. the bricks can be sheep in a field, jars on a shelf, penguins on an ice-floe, whatever! The bricks can be used to illustrate mathematical ideas, concepts and problems through representation. REPRESENTATION shows mathematics to students who are trying to learn and to teachers who are looking for signs that students are understanding what is being taught.

Make REPRESENTATION with Six Bricks an approach to how you & they do mathematics.

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At present I am working on the concept of subtraction within number experience to 10.

Vocabulary: take away, subtract, how many less?, fewer, smaller amount, reduce, equals, makes, leaves.

Group: group of 4 students with 4 sets of bricks combined  = 24 brick pile

Group Task: using your bricks, can you make a subtracting story for this number sentence?

9 - 4 = 5

When finished, tell the story to your teacher.

This is one of the stories created and told:

“Teacher, there were 9 tin cans up on the wall. We took turns throwing tennis balls at them. Billy knocked 4 off. That left 5 because 9 take away 4 leaves 5."

Using piles of Six Bricks in groups to illustrate and tell mathematical stories is a powerful way to engage in, think through and do mathematics.

Could you use this approach?

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The Care for Education team in South Africa premised their vision for Six Bricks around a number of ‘Key Messages’. I guess these are ‘ideas’ that research and experience shows us to hold universal truth. From reading through their various documents, articles and papers, I have distilled the following from the writings of Brent Hutchenson and the team:

Key Message 1: Children learn best through play.

Key Message 2: Learning through play requires planning.

Key Message 3: Planning to incorporate play is not extra work.

Key Message 4: In play, learners develop executive function and self-regulation skills.

Key Message 5: Learners need to hear and use language.

Key Message 6: Learners need to use their whole body to learn.

Key Message 7: Young children need to develop socio-emotional skills.

Key Message 8: Play develops critical perceptual skills.

Key Message 9: Daily perceptual-motor and cross lateral activities are vital for future learning

Key Message 10: Concrete first, then abstract.

Key Message 11: Acquire reading skills through play.

Key Message 12: Learners need to play with words, as play is the most profitable activity for the development of language.

Key Message 13: Consolidate mathematical concepts through the playing of games.

Key Message 14: Playing with Six Bricks integrates many skills and almost all subjects.

Key Message 15: A moving child is a learning child.

These key messages to one extent or another, infuse and power the purpose of many Six Bricks activities, as teachers build childrens' skills across domains and subjects.

Let these key messages guide how you go about your work too, be that with or without the support of sets of Six Bricks.

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Play is the “work” of children. No other activity in the child’s life is as valuable as play for the purposes of learning. Play fulfils a decisive and vital role in the cognitive development of the child. These truths compel teachers to take a creative, active, hands-on, manipulatives rich approach to curriculum.

A play environment filled with play opportunities will ensure:

Learning about the self: Children develop a positive self-image and trust their own ability. They develop a sense of independence, self-discipline and self-knowledge, based on the full use of their sensory skills.

Learning about others and the world around them: They practise communication and social skills, and develop into more sensitive participants in the world in which they live; they learn to appreciate some of the values of their parents and society at large.

Learning about problem solving: Young children need to be accomplished in observation and exploration; through play they learn to predict, experiment, discuss, negotiate, compromise and stand their ground. (Browne, 2009)

Through play, children develop their core learning skills:

Self-regulation

Creativity

Curiosity

Playfulness

The handling of concrete material is essential to the young child’s concept development. Even as children progress through primary school, they need time to explore a variety of tools and activities that will assist them to use their senses and help them to grasp new concepts.

These are the ideas that are core to Six Bricks activities and their place in early classrooms and homes i.e. in any setting where children are playing, and by extension, learning.

Make Six Bricks activities and games part of your every school day.

www.sixbrickseducation.com

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There are loads of skills that a young child needs to practice in order to acquire and strengthen them, and Six Bricks can surely help. Here's just one little activity from the 'Care for Education' team in South Africa. You can add your own ideas and build further on to the activity.

Objectives

To develop and practise visual discrimination skills - the ability to see similarities, differences and details of objects accurately

To develop and practise hand-eye co-ordination - the hands and eyes working together when performing a movement

Procedure

Children work in pairs

The teacher builds a stack (tower) by placing each brick on the small side one on top of each other

Children must take note of Teacher’s colour sequence

Children must work with their partner and each child may only use one hand - their outside hand to build. They also may only touch and move a brick when both of them have a hand on the brick.

The pair must work in unison to balance their stack in the correct colour sequence

The first pair to complete the stack is the winner

Teacher can build various different stacks for the partners to copy

Each partner can take turns to build a stack for the other one to copy

Q: Can you copy the colour sequence and the positioning of the bricks as you balance the stacks?

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Teachers – if you magnetise a set of bricks and combine them with your classroom drywipe markerboard, you will have a very powerful teaching, testing, self-corrective and reinforcing resource.

Stay with me for the revelation! - I'll explain the procedure - see graphic as you read.

How to:

Get yourseld a set of Six Bricks and some ‘magnetic tape’.

Cut strips of magnetic tape and attach to the sides of the bricks.

Now stick your newly minted magnetic Six Bricks up on your big classroom drywipe magnetic whiteboard.

Now there are tens of thousands of ways to use this new super open-ended resource.

Activity Requirements:

A set of Six Magnetised Bricks, a large Drywipe Marker Board at the front of room, a set of six bricks for each student at their table.

Activity Procedure

Write six sums up on the whiteboard.

Write the matching but randomly arranged answers beneath the questions.

Assign a brick to each answer.

Children must now work out each question in turn and select and place each matching brick into a sequence on their tables, from top to bottom. - see image 6 in picture.

As they work, you circulate and observe, perhaps interceding and directing where necessary i.e. children look at question 1 and choose the brick that matches that answer. He/she takes and places that brick first at the top of their copybook or table e.g. 0+1 = 0, Yellow is ‘0’, so yellow first. Next, 2+4=6, 6 is Red, so red is slotted in after yellow and so on.

Once the children have worked out each question and answer mentally, and arranged their bricks, teacher then corrects each question in turn and moves the respective brick up beside the question.

Children self-correct any wrong answers.

(You can write up any six questions and six answers and code with six bricks. All children have to engage the question and sequence their own bricks accordingly)

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Six Bricks can be a productive part of a corporate team building morning or afternoon.

There are reams of great activities that one can tap into for some fun and games, but which can also be used to underscore such essential 21st century business / organisational and corporate skills such as good communication, collaboration, cooperation, creative thinking and critical thinking.

Group Task:

Using Six bricks and any other materials, create two mythical creatures and give them names.

What are their special powers?

What happens when the two creatures meet?

What are the business / corporate learning opportunities?

Procedure:

Provide sets of Six Bricks and other materials for teams to use and then wait for the creatures to emerge!

Here’s one group output -

Titled: The Battle of FuarFroid & ChaudeTe

(‘fuar’ is the gaelic word for cold and ‘froid’ is the French word for cold. ‘Te’ is the gaelic for hot and ‘chaude’ is the French equivalent)

Our two mythical creatures are FuarFroid and ChaudeTe, two shape-shifting creatures that were split apart in the days of the earth’s formation. At the moment, they look more like two thermo nuclear reactors, one raising temperatures and the other violently cooling. They are named after the Gaelic French Gods of cold and hot and they have competed for control of earth’s climate ever since.

When FuarFroid was at the height of power, earth entered an ice age but today ChaudeTe is gaining the upper hand, somewhat helped by human consumption of the earths resources.

The dual powers of both are finely balanced, battles are won and lost by both, and the battles rage on today, the future of the human civilised world depend on maintaining the balance between both.

They battle where hot and cold weather fronts meet across the earth’s atmosphere.

They constantly battle and those battles give us rain and snowstorms, violent storms and tornadoes, floods and droughts, temperatures that rise and fall across the globe. To the dismay of FuarFroid, ChaudeTe is melting earth’s polar ice sheets which may have a devastating and irreversible impact on earth’s climate.

If humankind is to sustain and flourish, we must keep the powers of both in check, in balance.

Thoughts please -

What 21st century skills are exhibited by the team that came up with this output to the set task?

Do you think there is a space for Six Bricks within corporate team building

Any other thoughts re. Six Bricks + Team Skills

www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Six Bricks support learning in 'Groups and Games'

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Six Bricks support learning in 'Groups and Games'

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Belonging to a group is important to young children. When they enter group settings, they are exposed to behaviour, social rules and attitudes that improve social development - all of this is best learned through playing with other children. It can really only be learned through playful interactions.

The 6 Bricks activities in this section are ideal ways for children to practise important social skills, such as:

learning ways to co-operate; disagree; share; communicate; assert themselves effectively; accept others’ ideas

learning to respect the rights and feelings of others; to display empathy towards others; to express and manage their own feelings in appropriate ways

to explore and engage with the environment

to develop self-confidence; to make and develop friendships; “read” social situations

the development of self-regulation - the ability to reflect on feelings; control impulses; delay gratification; resist temptation

the ability to resolve conflicts; to give and receive emotional support; to compromise

Take a break from the routine of the day, go outside and play some of these 77 Six Bricks games. You can even make up some of your own.

A Book of Activities that is found in most Six Bricks Kits or singularly as here: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/six-bricks-physical...

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Why are Six Bricks so important as a manipulative?

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Why are Six Bricks so important as a manipulative?

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Sometimes it is good to stop and reflect on why we use these Six Bricks manipulatives at all?

Six Bricks provide children with an opportunity to engage in playful learning activities. Through engaging in these activities, children develop skills needed for their holistic development, such as physical, social, thinking (known as cognitive), creative and emotional skills.

Six Bricks are one example of manipulatives, which are physical tools of teaching that engage students visually and physically. Manipulatives are concrete objects or tools that a teacher can use in the learning process. Manipulatives can be everyday objects such as stones, beans and wood; man-made such as household utensils for example spoons, bottle tops or clothes; or those designed for learning through play such as the LEGO® Six Bricks.

Using manipulatives provides hands-on activities with physical tools to stimulate and encourage learners, and that allows children to develop core learning concepts and become more inventive, curious and creative. It requires that a child use objects to build, move, order, turn, or arrange to fit, allowing them to learn how it feels to have control of objects that can be touched and moved and are inspired to build, sort, and count for a variety of activities.

Manipulatives are not used in isolation as a form of instruction. They are most effective when combined with other approaches and relevant language and connections. The teacher will always have the learning outcome first and foremost in mind and this will help to ensure a rich and deeper understanding for the children while utilising the manipulatives.

If all children in the classroom have the same manipulative set, then it is easier for the educator to guide activities and ensure a consistent pedagogical approach.

Six Bricks is a concrete and creative tool that allows learners to avail of the benefits of engaging with manipulatives, outlined as follows: (Ackerman et al, 2009)

Develop core learning skills through play

Use them for both very simple and highly complex construction

Combine bricks into almost unlimited combinations of concepts

Experiment to both construct and deconstruct with no negative consequences, and

Create opportunities for children to express their own thinking and ideas

hrough concrete manipulation, Six Bricks enables real learning through play.

(References: Ackerman, E., Gauntlett, D. & Weckstrom J.T.D. 2009.

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Playing is more than simple entertainment, it is how children learn.

There are loads of cooperative play games that every teacher can organise for their young students, drawing from the deep well of available Six Bricks activities. Sure, there are 100’s to choose from! We are spoilt for choice.

Games: to take learning outside!

Six Pin Bowling: divide the class into groups of 3. Give each group a tennis ball and 6 bricks, which become the bowling pins. Now invent a game with some rules, targets and lots of fun.

Bricks in a Bin: divide the class into groups of 3. Give each group a bin/box and 6 bricks. Now invent a game with some rules, targets and lots of fun e.g. place the bin 3 feet from the base line. Each child in the group has a go at throwing each of the 6 bricks into the bin from an under arm toss. Who can get the highest score out of 6. Keep scores and total the best of 3 rounds.

Brick Relay Balance: children run a relay with the brick sitting in an outstretched palm. Must pass in on without using second hand or closing any fingers.

Just three little games to support learning and cooperation through games. Adapt and build on them.

www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Six Bricks can help children practice, acquire and strengthen a vast range of core skills, for example - working memory.

With the following simple activity you are exercising childrens working memory as children try to correctly recall a sequence of 3 colour bricks i.e. they need to hold this information in their working memory / short term memory in order to remember & build that same sequence.

Teaching Point: Think of a child learning to spell– they have to be able to hold visual info in their working memory in order to produce the written word.

Working memory is just one of the many skills that are practiced with Six Bricks.

Activity:

Break apart your Six Bricks. I am going to build 3 bricks, show them to you for a moment and then you build a replica. This little activity illustrates how Six Bricks can help strengthen visual & working memory.

Ready: build a Yellow, Dark Blue, Light Blue ……..show for 3 secs …..hide behind your back or beneath your table……..they show you their builds ……… you hold up your one again………….. they compare and self-correct

Ready: build a Red, Yellow, Green, Dark Blue ……..show for 3 secs …..hide behind your back or beneath your table……..they show you their builds ……… you hold up your one again………….. they compare and self-correct

Ready: build a Green, Red, Light Blue, Orange, Dark Blue ……..show for 3 secs …..hide behind your back or beneath your table……..they show you their builds ……… you hold up your one again………….. they compare and self-correct

Note 1: the younger the children the shorter the sequence e.g. 2 bricks for the absolute beginners, it could be 6 for the older. You will get a feel for the level of ability of the group. Do reams of them at the level that is just right.

Note 2: keep the number of bricks limited and perhaps introduce one of the bricks at an angle.

Keep the level of difficulty just right, add twists and elements of variety and do lots and lots of practice over time as this is what builds skill. It's not about doing it once, it's about doing it over and over a few times a week over months, that builds up skill.

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This is a fun Six Bricks exercise the outdoor classroom, combining playful fun with re-oxygenation of their brains into the bargain!

Objectives

To develop body laterality - an awareness of each side of the body and the integration of both sides (bilateral)

To develop hand-eye co-ordination

To develop balance, gross and fine motor movement skills

Materials

6 bricks

Any other materials that you want to introduce

​Procedure

This is an activity that can be done outside in the playground, in the green area or while dispersed about the classroom. Talk the students through the activity, varying the instructions each time, adding extra twists, turns and complications each time.

You only need any 2 of your Six Bricks; hold one in each hand

Stand up AND balance one on the back of your right hand; balance the other on the back of your left hand

Stretch your arms out in front of you - keep the bricks balanced while I count down from 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!

If your bricks fall off, just pick them up again and carry on! Figure out a way to keep them balanced e.g. Tighten your muscles

Teaching point: This exercise strengthens all the muscles in your arms, and builds situational awareness.

Keeping the brick on the back of each hand, stretch your arms out wide to the sides; move your arms in a circular motion; keep moving while balancing on your right leg; then your left leg

Move about like an airplane, swoop to the left, swoop to the right, level off, outstretched arms level with shoulders

Again, continuing with the bricks on the backs of your hands, hold your arms in two different positions and move down into a crouch and back up again. With arms outstretched, twist your body to the right, twist to the left, do this 5 times

Remove the brick from the back of your left hand; remove the brick from the back of your right hand, hold firmly onto your bricks - one in each hand; join them together covering all the studs

Now walk about, throwing your 2 brick block into the air and catching as you go.

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There are 100s of exercises for use with Crossing the B-Line Mat with Six Bricks.

The following exercise is for young children who are working on number within the range of 1 to 5.

Start off by identifying the position of each line in turn i.e. line 1 is at the bottom, followed by line 2, line 3 is in the middle, followed by 4, with line 5 at the top etc.

Objective: to move bricks forwards and backwards to the named lines as instructed by the teacher.

Requirements: a set of 6 bricks and a Crossing B-Line Mat for each student.

Procedure:

Start with all bricks lined up on the bottom line.

Call out 20 instructions, slowly, one by one, and as you make the calls, the children move their bricks over and back across the lines 1 to 5.

Move orange to 3

Move green to 2

Move yellow to 5

Move light blue to 4

Move dark blue to the middle line 3

Move red up 1 line

Move yellow back 1 to 4

Keep making calls and when you are finished have the children compare their mats with you and with partners. Correct by making comparisons or by teacher saying where each coloured brick is at the finish.

Extension: play a +1 game i.e. move yellow to 2+1, move green to 1+1 etc.

For bricks, books and mats, visit https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/sixbricks.html

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Six Bricks are a superb hands-on learning manipulative. Manipulatives are excellent for assisting students with visualisation and as concrete materials on which to ‘overlay thinking’, helping to make thinking more visible.

Use your brick stack to work out ‘the value of the brick stack’.

PROBLEM: What is the value of my GROBBY Brick Stack if the value of GREEN is 128, and the value of each subsequent brick is worth HALF the one above it?

Note: there are an infinite number of ‘number problems’ that you could ask the children to work out, all based around their age and stage. Just assign a value or values to the bricks and let the thinking and manipulation begin! - e.g. e.g. if yellow is 3 and each subsequent brick is worth 2 more than the previous, what would be the total value of 2 brick stacks? Children just love getting stuck into good challenges!

(what's the answer?)

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Run Grobby, Run Grobby, Run, Run, Run.....

Sometimes the kids need a brain break and to take fresh air outside of the classroom, and get their hearts pumping, lungs expanding and brains reoxygenated in good time for the next lesson. Six Bricks relay is the perfect transition / time-out activity.

Procedure:

Create 6 teams of equal numbers and assign a brick to each team. Yellow team, green team etc.

Six children line up at the start, each with a brick colour in their hand.

Space the next 6 team members at the 50-meter point, then the next at 100m and so on.

On the whistle, they run and pass on the relay brick to the next team member etc. First team colour home is the winner.

Extension 1: bricks must be carried in and passed on using the less dominant hand by all runners.

Extension 2: bricks must be carried behind their backs between two outstretched palms of their hands. Relay partner takes it and continues in the same way.

Extension 3: run with the brick balanced on the back of your dominant hand.

Clear the classroom and get all your little Grobbies out for a run!

To purchase bricks or any other materials, visit www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Run Grobby Run Grobby Run, Run, Run......

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If within your curriculum, you’re wondering what to do,

Just take 6 coloured brickies, 2 which are blue.

Stick them together, break them apart,

This is the beginning, to give maths a start.

Stand them on edge, stand them tall,

The higher they go, the further they fall.

Some are cold, while others are hot,

They communicate feelings, happy or not.

Call and then click, as you stand back-to-back,

The more that you do it, the easier to crack.

Down on all fours, you twist all around,

As you try to touch colours, all spread on the ground.

Crossing over and back across the mid-line,

Where both thought and action both hopefully align.

A classroom of kiddies, they hop, twist and run,

While balancing six brickies, spilling playful fun.

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I love these type of Six Bricks activities, as do the students.

You can easily create them and display them up on your interactive whiteboard or simply draw them up on your drywipe marker board.

Let's do it.

Get out your set of Six Bricks.

Here is your challenge: how fast can you place your bricks in order on your table, one under the other, to answer the question in the attached graphic?

See answer in text box.

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Are you an Infants / Reception / Year 1 Teacher?

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Are you an Infants / Reception / Year 1 Teacher?

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The summer holidays are coming to an end and the return to school is on the horizon.

It’s time to think about the class ahead and your planned programme of work.

In their first year of school here in Ireland, children do a lot of work in two key areas -

learn their 42 letter sound code, predominantly following the Jolly Phonics Programme.

learn to count to 5 or 10, make sets, add, count-on and manipulate numbers within the 5 and 10 range.

Six Bricks can make a huge contribution in each area.

If Six Bricks can support teaching and learning across these two big concept areas, then I'm fully in!

FIRSTLY - there is the Six Bricks Letter Sound Code A3 Mat with all 42 sounds on it which supports very active hands-on learning of and engagement with the sounds – see here https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/letter-sound-bricks...- as you call the sounds, the child has to hear the ‘phoneme’ and identify it’s shape / grapheme on the card e.g. can you place a green brick on ‘p’, can you place a yellow brick on ‘n’ etc.

See the Teacher Notes in the FREE to use supporting IWB software tool here –https://sixbrickssoftware.com/v3/#/lettersoundbricks

This mat can be used to teach, revise and cement all 42 letter code sounds over a number of months.

SECONDLY – there is a superb Six Bricks Number Line to 10 which can be used to teach the count sequence from 1 to 10, to teach addition of two and three sets, to teach counting on etc.

See the Teacher Notes in the FREE to use software tool here –https://sixbrickssoftware.com/v3/#/bricknumberline

Equipped with sets of Six Bricks, Letter Sound Code Mats and Number Lines, you will be well set up to teach the reading code and number concepts to 10.

Purchasing Options HERE: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/sixbricks.html...

1. Purchase sets of Six Bricks either as individual packs or discounted sets, as low as €5.97 each (pack 36)

2. Purchase sets of ‘My Six Bricks Number Line’ which are just €2.99 each

3. Purchase sets of Activity Mats 7 & 8 which are just €0.95 each

4. BEST VALUE: The Complete Six Bricks Kit for Infants €289.00 https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/infants-six-bricks...

Six Bricks Education distribute worldwide with DHL, so place your order today and be ready for the start of the school year.

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When children first begin reading, they will come across many ‘tricky words’.

Tricky Words are so called because they are phonically irregular, they cannot be read by applying the reading code and ‘sounding out’.

‘Tricky Words’ must be learned by ‘sight’ alone, they must be recognised and recalled automatically and at speed.

There are many ways to teach, practice, reinforce and cement these words into children’s long-term memory for automatic and instant recall.

One such way is by using Six Bricks and the two Tricky Word mats which contain all 72 Tricky Words that children need recall quickly and automatically. They need to be made part of their ‘sight words’ – words recognised by ‘sight’ alone without recourse to phonics.

Activity Mats 15&16: Tricky Word Bricks 1 & 2 with 18 words on side 1 and 18 words on side 2 https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/tricky-word-bricks-1...

Activity Mats 17&18: Tricky Word Bricks 3 & 4 with a further 18 words on side 1 and 18 words on side 2 https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/tricky-word-bricks-3...

Supporting FREE to use IWB software with Teacher Notes on using the Mats: https://sixbrickssoftware.com/v3/#/trickywords1

Why not equip your classroom with some sets of Six Bricks and a few sets of the Tricky Words A3 Mats and begin teaching, practicing and embedding the 72 Tricky Words into your childrens’ long term memory.

Shop Six Bricks here: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/sixbricks.html

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For me, a set of Six Bricks are designed to be on the pupil’s desk pretty much all day, every day. The are clicked together into a GROBBY Stack when not being used i.e. Green on a Red on an Orange on a Dark Blue on a Light Blue on a Yellow.

When the children are engaged in pencil & paper individual work, such as a text genre writing exercise, a written set of comprehension response questions or mathematical problem solving, then using a green, orange or red brick can be used to visually indicate to the teacher how you are doing by setting out a brick colour on its own.

As the children work, the teacher circulates.

Children place a brick out on their table from the stack to indicate how they are doing.

GREEN: meaning - Teacher, I’m O.K., I’ve got this.

ORANGE: meaning - Teacher I need some assistance when you are available

RED: meaning - Teacher, I’m Stuck, I need your assistance when you are available

As a teacher, you can see how the class is faring overall by the general colour of the bricks that are set out.

You circulate and assist the REDs first, as they are at a stop.

Then you respond to each of the ORANGEs in turn.

Check in on the GREENs too with a word of encouragement here and there as you go.

Give this traffic lights work flow system a go to really appreciate the dynamic it brings to the momentum of the classroom.

To purchase Six Bricks resources, simply visit, browse and shop here: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/sixbricks.html

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What is the missing number in each sequence?

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What is the missing number in each sequence?

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I think there are millions of ways to use Six Bricks in curriculum in a way that challenges, engages, stimulates thinking and problem solving across every age and stage!

It just requires the teacher to dream up and prepare the challenges in advance. Once created for your class, they can be used over and over.

I often use an Interactive Whiteboard and an Excel File to deliver the prepared challenge. I save all the challenges and we often run through them again later as part of short, snappy, hands-on, active revision sessions.

I also prepare the Brick Sequence answer, which I then reveal once they have sequenced their Six Bricks on their desks.

Here is one for you to do – see image.

Go on – sequence your bricks and then compare to the answer key in the REPLY box below.

This technique can be use widely across all areas of curriculum.

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What is the missing number in the sequence V2

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Six Bricks and the Primary Language Curriculum - GAEILGE.

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Six Bricks and the Primary Language Curriculum - GAEILGE.

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Can Six Bricks really support second language learning like ‘GAEILGE’ in Ireland’s primary classrooms?

Short answer is a very definite YES!

It just requires the teacher to dream up and prepare the targeted language activities.

We know that in Ireland there are a bunch of themes around which language learning is focused.

‘Ócáidí Speisialta’ is one such theme and below I have selected some vocabulary around a ‘BIRTHDAY’ or ‘breithlá’.

I use an Interactive Whiteboard and an Excel File to deliver the prepared challenge.

I always save the challenges and you’ll be surprised how quickly they build up into an expansive bank, for reuse over and over, and that is how vocabulary and sentence structures are laid down.

I also prepare the Brick Sequence answer, which I then reveal once they have sequenced their Six Bricks on their desks.

Here is one for you to do – see image.

Go on – sequence your bricks and then compare to the answer key in the REPLY box below.

This technique can be use widely across all areas the Primary Language Curriculum.

NOTE: In this comprehension activity, we have reading of sentences, and selecting vocabulary to fill in the blanks appropriately, thus demonstrating understanding.

This procedure can be replicated across themes and topics in hundreds of different ways.

Get yourself a class set of Six Bricks and get going with a new innovative, interactive, hands-on and fun way to do language learning.

Order your brick sets here for immediate delivery: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/sixbricks.html...

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Hi all - great to be back and sharing within the community again. Our huge online Six Bricks teacher training course just finished and it consumed us for the past weeks, having run from July 4 to August 19, and overseen by the Department of Education here in Ireland. It was also a time of great innovation and we are brimful of new ideas! Here's one little nugget.

Let's personify the bricks and pretend that each is an elite athlete. Each of the Six Bricks have been training hard for the past week in preparation for a run off over 100 metres, to finally decide who amongst them is the fastest over that distance.

The long eared GROBBY Six Bricks rabbit was assigned as final adjudicator and to record the results.

They lined up, all revved and buzzed for the race of the year.

On the whistle off they sped.

GROBBY got ready up at the finish line to record the results.

Here are the notes GROBBY made:

ORANGE came in directly after GREEN, RED came first, with DARK BLUE last, followed by YELLOW just behind GREEN.

TASK: can you line up the Six Bricks in the sequence that they crossed the finishing line, and of course not forgetting to place poor LIGHT BLUE in there too!

Note 1: this activity requires the application of logical reasoning, visualisation and problem-solving skills. Can you appreciate how much easier it is to solve a problem when you have hands-on concrete manipulatives to move about and on which you can overlay your thinking. Six Bricks support a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach to learning activities and problem solving.

Note2: this activity can be repeated over and over with your students, just change up the narrative on the finishing positions of the bricks in each race.

Any ideas for extensions on the idea?

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Six Bricks Multiplication, Division, Addition & Subtraction

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Six Bricks Multiplication, Division, Addition & Subtraction

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Is there anything more important or crucial than children being able to accurately and speedily recall their tables facts, be that for addition, subtraction, multiplication or division?

If their recall of tables facts are weak, hesitant or not secure, then this will pull down their confidence and ultimate success in mathematics.

SIX BRICKS to the rescue!

We have a number of Tables Facts mats for every level that children can work on and independently self-check / self-correct using the associated ‘Master Correction Sheet’.

Children love testing and checking themselves with these mats, over and over until they are confidently and speedily getting 6/6 each and every time.

How it works: see image in conjunction with text here.

You have to place your bricks into the rocket, starting at the top/nose and finishing at bottom/tail, according to what colour brick matches each answer.

Look at the 6A Questions set in image

So - 12 x 6 = , well I think 72, so orange brick is 72, so place that at the top.

Now finish for the other 5 questions.

When all 6 bricks are in the rocket, now compare your rocket to set 6A on the ‘Multiplication Master Correction Sheet’.

How well did you do?

Children learning multiplication tables in Year 3 / Third Class love testing and correcting themselves each morning, three times a week. It really does drive mastery and recall of tables facts.

The Multiplication Mat has multiplication tables 1 to 6 on Side A and 7 to 12 on the reverse and costs just €0.95 in the shop - https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/brick-multiplication...

The Division Mat has division tables 1 to 6 on Side A and 7 to 12 on the reverse and costs just €0.95 in the shop - https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/brick-division-tables...

Master correction sheet for Multiplication is on Side A of this mat and Division correction is on Side B and costs €0.95 https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/multiplication...

A set of these mats are a huge support to success in acquiring and mastering tables facts knowledge and are advised for any teacher interested in cementing in childrens’ tables facts.

Tip: if I have 20 kids, then I purchase 20 of each mat and master correction mat and I am well set up.

(Note: also available for addition and subtraction – see shop - https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/sixbricks.html...)

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The Six Bricks Manual Pack - Only €49.95

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The Six Bricks Manual Pack - Only €49.95

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What I love about physical hard copy teaching manuals is that you can have them there on your teacher table and simply pick one up and choose an activity to do, when it comes to ‘Six Bricks Time’.

All 7 manuals are now available to order as a single convenient pack.

Together, the manuals detail ALL 548 Six Bricks activities + 35 Software Tools, all in full colour illustration.

The 548 activities are divided across the respective manuals as follows:

Book 1:Perceptual Skills Development Manual (A4 / 44 Pages / 71 Activities)

Book 2: Literacy Skills Development Manual (A4 / 32 Pages / 42 Activities)

Book 3: Numeracy Skills Development Manual (A4 / 40 Pages / 61 Activities)

Book 4: Physical, Social-Emotional Skills Development, Groups and Games activities Manual (A4 / 52 Pages / 77 Activities)

Book5: 'Crossing the B-Line Mat and Move, Jump & Follow Mat' - Book 1 (Details: Size: A4 / Pages: 52 /Activities: 132)

Book 6: 'Crossing the B-Line Mat and Move, Jump &Follow Mat' - Book 2 (Details: Size: A4 / Pages: 64 / Activities: 165)

Book 7: Six Bricks Software & Activity Mats Teacher Guide - this book connects you to the 35+ tools of the FREE to use Six Bricks Interactive Whiteboard software, with detailed classroom practice guidance for each item (A4 / 50 Pages / 35+ Tools)

Simply, all the guidance you need to effectively take Six Bricks into core teaching and learning in your school or setting.

If you are serious about making full use of Six Bricks, then why not treat yourself, your students and your school to a set of manuals today.

Link to purchase: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/six-bricks-activities...

We ship worldwide with DHL.

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An excel file is a great place in which to create and store your Six Bricks Answer Code activities.

You can create SBACs on any specific skill area of your own primary school curriculum.

I created this one on reading clock times. There are hundreds you could do to teach, test and reinforce the reading of analogue and digital times.

You could focus on simply the hour intervals, the quarter and half hour, the 5 minute intervals, or a combination of all, depending on the class you teach.

The children use and arrange their set of Six Bricks on their tables from left to right. This is a great way of combining and using technology and physical manipulatives.

Can you put your Six Bricks into the correct sequence from left to right on your table to match the times on the clocks?

For materials and sets of bricks, visit www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Here’s a nice mental arithmetic exercise around ‘square numbers’ and applying the Six Bricks Answer Code. It was created in Excel and projected using an IWB. It requires understanding of square numbers and tables facts. You can create unlimited versions for all strand units of the mathematics curriculum, for the level of your students.

The following is for year 6 students. See image.

Children have to compute the square part using multiplication tables facts knowledge and then hold two answers in short term memory and compute the total answer, and then select the matching colour brick and insert into the sequence.

The children use and arrange their set of Six Bricks on their tables from left to right. This is a great way of combining and using technology and physical manipulatives.

Can you create the correct matching brick sequence from left to right on your table. (insert you answer into the reply box!)

For bricks and materials visit www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Six Bricks is one of those great resources that lend itself to a collaboration between school and home, between teacher and parent. With Six Bricks being such a universally affordable resource to have in every school bag going home, wouldn’t it be wonderful to actively educate parents in how these bricks can be used in a systematic way to build a whole range of great skills across perceptual skills, numeracy skills and literacy skills, not forgetting that they can support simple playful fun and game activities.

We know that the more parents are involved in their children’s education, the better the child’s motivation, behaviour, and learning outcomes are. Encouraging parent engagement is more than common courtesy. It is one of the best ways to create a positive learning environment for every student. Such active involvement is beneficial to parents too as it builds on their knowledge of child development and helps to support them in their parenting skills.

Our suggestion is that you lead a ‘Six Bricks Parent Night’ at your school for the parent body. There could be a night for the junior parents, followed by a night for the senior parents, where you introduce them to the power of the Six Bricks pedagogy, principles and practices through playful, hands-on, fun and game activities.

We know that parents in general are hugely interested education and how children learn. They will enjoy learning about all the skills that Six Bricks build and will become willing partners in doing Six Bricks activities as part of homework tasks and routines.

What do you think of this suggestion?

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Hi All,

We have developed two very useful software products which are FREE for all to use in classrooms worldwide to support teaching, learning and assessment.

I urge you to try them out and where applicable, incorporate elements of each into your lesson plans.

The Toolkit4Maths: https://toolkit4maths.com/

Six Bricks Software Toolkit: https://sixbrickssoftware.com/v3/#/sixbricks

As you access and check out each tool, be sure to read the 'Teacher Notes' for each tool within the toolkits.

Enjoy.

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This is a nice little activity, and in many instances, there will be different six brick arrangements that provide the same answer.

It requires trial and error problem solving, and relates to the area of ‘shape & space’ in mathematics (ways of seeing / viewing points – skills that children need plenty of practice with)

Most times they will have to play with the bricks to discover the answer.

Scenario: TEACHER is a BIRD, obviously with a ‘bird’s eye view’, looking down from above.

Arrange ALL your Six Bricks, so that I can only see

6 Studs

12 studs

18 studs

10 studs

16 studs

23 studs – see image for this one!

0 studs

There are lots of combinations that you can use to challenge the children.

Extension: allow them to work in groups and come up with their own challenges e.g. could we show ’31 studs’?

Is there a smarter way of working these combinations out, besides a trial & error approach?

What numbers from 1 to 48 are impossible to show?

Will you use this idea? What other extensions suggest themselves to you?

For bricks, materials and ideas, visit www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Six Bricks colours are:

Green, Red, Orange, dark Blue, light Blue and Yellow i.e. GROBBY.

Different except for 2 shades of blue – light / dark – shades add a layer of complexity to activities.

All children receive same 6 colours so there is no arguing; allows for mixing of the bricks / working in groups; easy to collect own six colours from the mix.

Six Bricks can be used for learning through play:

Individually or with a partner/groups

With a variety of ages

As an assessment tool

Six Bricks Activities assists with:

Critical cognitive skills and caters for holistic development

Integrated activities designed to cover all learning areas and developmental skills

Development of executive functions of the brain - working memory; cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control: life-long learning skills

Six Bricks activities can be repeated in different ways, so children are never bored, even though they are repeating skills for consolidation and reinforcement:

Six Bricks activities can take 2 - 5 mins. They are short, sharp and engaging activities that wake up the brain, but they should be done every day

Children grow and develop at different rates - Six Bricks activities can be adapted to any child’s level

Six Bricks activities caters for different learning styles - visual; auditory; tactile learners

Six Bricks are:

So easy to manage - children keep their Six Bricks on their own table or close by in a visible tub/container or chair bag as a GROBBY stack - Green, Red, Orange, Blue, Blue, Yellow.

A concrete tool readily available to help solve problems

Cost effective and an easy way to get manipulatives into the hands of every child in the classroom – one resource / hundreds of activities.

A means to experience colourful, fun, hands-on learning – hundreds of activities

Able to create a happy, positive vibe in the classroom which affects both children and teachers alike – you have to experience it to fully appreciate it!

Six Bricks materials and resources are available here – www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Hi All,

The fact that you are here, suggests that you have heard about Six Bricks or that your curiosity has been stirred!

Perhaps you have completed an online or face-to-face training course and know lots about how Six Bricks can be effectively used in early years and primary school education settings.

Now that you are ready to begin your own journey in incorporating Six Bricks into your teaching practice, you may be wondering where to start?

How about beginning with a ‘Six Bricks Starter Kit’ which costs just €195.00 inclusive of vat.

It contains a whopping 30 packs of bricks and manuals of activities to get you off to a flying start.

Thereafter you can access lots more ideas and activities here in the community and on the Six Bricks Education.com website.

Starter Kit €195 – see details here - https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/30-sets-of-6-bricks.html

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Most activities with Six Bricks is not just about doing the activity once, but doing it a number of times over succeeding days and weeks. That is what builds up and cements in skills. It is the repeated practice.

Below is just one such activity which can be completed over and over; sure there are hundreds of ‘call-outs’ that you could make. This particular activity teaches children to listen carefully, and strengthens short term memory recall skills.

Objectives: Children learn to:

Listen carefully to instructions

Carry out instructions

Use spatial skills to orientate themselves

Keep attention and resist distraction

Attend to remembering

Initiate activities

Children need to develop the skills of listening, following instructions and of attention to detail. They must learn to stay focused on the activity to hand and resist the competing distractions that are all around them in busy classrooms. For sure, engaging in the myriad of Six bricks activities will help them to become better at paying attention and paying attention to detail.

The following activity can be completed over and over by varying the instructions.
Also, allow various children to be the callers.

Procedure

Children lay out their bricks in any order.

Begin instructing:

Put your right finger on the red brick and move it left

Turn the dark blue brick upside down

Turn the yellow brick on its side, studs facing you

Put your little finger on the orange brick and move it to the right

Stand the green brick up on its end

Put the light blue brick on the red brick and cover 4 red studs

Stand the dark blue brick on the green brick

See image for just one possible position of bricks after the above instructions.

Extension 1

Using two hands, children pick up the first and last brick and swap their places (have fun doing this a few times)

Then they pick up the red and green brick and swap places (vary colours)

Using their left hand (or less dominant hand), children pick up the blue brick and place it in their lap. (Vary colours, hand and places you use in the instructions)

What other instructions can you think of? (Let the children suggest and try their instructions)

Just 1 of 100's of Six Bricks activities - www.sixbrickseducation.com

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SIX BRICKS Powers Student Curriculum Engagement

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SIX BRICKS Powers Student Curriculum Engagement

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Every day we get even more excited about the potential of Six Bricks in school & classroom curriculums! Six Bricks support student -

Engagement

Participation

Cognitive processing

I am going to present just 4 examples covering ‘Vocabulary Development’, ‘Dictionary Skills’, ‘Mathematics’ and ‘Geography’ so that you can appreciate the power and flexibility of Six Bricks.

Look at the attached image and use your Six Bricks to answer each question in turn by sequencing your bricks into the correct order as required:

1. Place these parts of the body in the order they appear from the top of your head to your ankle (Vocabulary Development)

2. Place these words in the order they would appear in a dictionary. (Dictionary Skills)

3. Place these shapes in order from the smallest to greatest number of sides. (Mathematics)

4. Place the planets in order from nearest to furthest from the sun. (Geography)

Now just think about it – if your students were presented these or similar questions, wouldn’t they too be more fully participating, engaging and processing the information, concepts and ideas at hand.

If there was a teaching and learning resource that you could place into the hands of your students and that together you would use it every day, would you adopt it into your school?

Well, Ireland’s primary schools are piling into Six Bricks, placing them on the tables of their students and plugging them into curriculum daily.

Come on, join the movement and bring the excitement and power of Six Bricks to your school!

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Six Bricks are playful,

Six Bricks are fun,

Six Bricks are colourful,

Six Bricks are hands-on,

Six Bricks are exponential possibility,

Six Bricks are ever present,

Six Bricks are open-ended,

Six Bricks are never ending,

Six Bricks are visual,

Six Bricks are sociable,

Six Bricks are cognitively challenging,

Six Bricks are immersive,

Six Bricks are games,

Six Bricks are skills building,

Six Bricks are story,

Six Bricks are curriculum enabling,

Six Bricks are for all ages,

Six Bricks are inspiring,

Six Bricks are current,

Six Bricks are shape-shifters,

Six Bricks are perception,

Six Bricks are emotional,

Six Bricks are language skills,

Six Bricks are communication,

Six Bricks are dendrite fodder,

Six Bricks are mathematics,

Six Bricks are creative,

Six Bricks are colourful creatures,

Six Bricks are pattern,

Six Bricks are education,

Six Bricks are cooperative,

Six Bricks are physical,

Six Bricks are builders,

Six Bricks are worldwide,

Six Bricks are timeless,

Six Bricks are inclusive,

Six Bricks are loved,

Six Bricks are whatever you see.

Martin Pender @ Six Bricks Education

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Grobby Six Bricks loves to go on adventures, with a pack of Six Bricks strapped onto his back.

Get your students to engage their imaginations and to think of all the places he likes to go, things he likes to do and the fun he has?

Grobby always has his six bricks with him. Sometimes he even uses them to solve problems, like the time when Henrietta Hen fell into Wild River and was rescued by Grobby, who made a raft out of his Six Bricks, paddled out and safely brought her back to the river bank.

Task: can your students write and illustrate their own Grobby stories e.g. Grobby Goes Fishing or Grobby Rescues Robin or Grobby & The Storm or Grobby Saves Sport’s Day at School or make up your own titles.

Use Six Bricks to springboard your students into oral language, imaginative response, writing and illustration.

Share: to inspire them in their journey, why not share the Grobby story here: https://youtu.be/VEpa7dAVpc8

To make it real: tell them that there is a Six Bricks audience here on Facebook with whom you are going to share some of the finished writing and illustrations.

Happy adventuring!

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Activity steps:

Build a model where you cannot see how the whole bricks are placed, as in the picture below.

Make sure each child has the same types of bricks as you used to make the model.

Show the model to the group only from one angle. This means the children have to figure out how the bricks are placed even though they cannot see it from all angles.

After finishing building, let the children look at the model from all angles and then ask them:

Why was it hard to build this model?

How did you figure out how to build the model?

Tips and ideas

Since this activity is a bit difficult, start very simple with only a few bricks, and then make it more difficult over time.

You can also let the children to do this activity in pairs or small groups, when one child builds the model and the rest try to copy.

Create 3D perspective models. Photograph them from various angles using your phone camera. Create and print cards with the models on them for the students to solve, or project them onto the IWB.

For all you bricks and materials, visit www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Activity steps:

Ask the children to each find a blue 2*4 brick, a red 2*4 brick and a green 2*4 brick.

Then secretly build a model with those 3 bricks and keep them covered so that the children cannot see what you have built.

Describe to the children how you built the model. The children should then try to build it in the same way. • The children have to listen carefully, and not ask any questions.

Show your model and let the children compare it to theirs – discuss and share findings.

Ask the children:

Was it difficult? Why?

What was hard in listening and then building?

Tips and ideas

Once the children are familiar with the activity, they can do it in pairs, with one child describing the model and the other building.

For all you bricks and materials, visit www.sixbrickseducation.com

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The following is a Six Bricks inspired poetry session.

Learning Objectives:

to talk about funfairs, focusing on new words, adjectives and verbs

to stimulate oral language and fire imaginations

to write a single communal class poem together

Procedure:

For this activity, choose a location in which to set and inspire your poem. A location with possibilities such as a funfair, circus, beach, town centre, zoo etc.

Use my own ‘Funfair’ poem below to model the technique.

Begin with an image of a funfair from the past or present to launch the discussion, questioning and story, out of which will come the vocabulary, imaginative ideas and ultimately the poem.

Following on from the language lesson, explain that everyone must choose an outrageously mad thing that they did at the funfair, and it must be inspired by a SIX BRICKS colour. It could also be something simple and normal!

Give the children time to come up with one thing he/she did at the funfair that relates to a brick colour. When all are ready, go around the room, ask the question:

Jack, when you went to the funfair, tell me what did you do? …. Jack holds up a GREEN brick and says ……… see poem.

Continue calling on other kids and recording their contributions into the big class poem, which can be written up, illustrated and displayed for the enjoyment of all!

The Funfair

Jack, when you went to the funfair, tell me what did you do?

I drank an ice cold, slime green, refreshing slime juice!

Ann, when you went to the fun fair, tell me what did you do?

I rode the Red Thunderbird rollercoaster so high!

Enky, when you went to the fun fair, tell me what did you do?

I caught seven orange goldfish, but one of them died!

Mathilda, when you went to the fun fair, tell me what did you do?

I bought a huge helium dark blue looney balloon!

Mary, when you went to the fun fair, tell me what did you do?

I lay in the sunshine under a light blue sky!

Roberto, when you went to the fun fair, tell me what did you do?

I fished a yellow duckie from the duckie water rapids!

Oh, there’s lots to do at a funfair!

Olivia, ………………

I ………………………

Tom, ………………………..

I …………………………………………..

Jacinta, …………………………

I ……………………………………..

Joshua, ………………………

I ……………………………………………..

Immelda, ………………………………

Donald, ………………………………

Oh, there’s lots to do at a funfair!

Can this be called a poem? What are the identifiable features? Is there repetition? Is there technique? Is there colour in the verses? Can you see the colours of the SIX BRICKS in the verses? Is there fun with language? Is there imagination? Etc. etc.

As you can see, this poem could go on forever ………… because ……. THERE’S LOTS TO DO AT A FUNFAIR!”

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Reception Class

Maths Strand Unit: Matching

Learning objectives:

The student will be able to match equivalent and non-equivalent sets using one-to-one correspondence (add another collection of objects to your 6 bricks e.g. 7 colours of compare bears. Now, each child has 6 bricks + 7 bears. Ask loads of questions: Are there more bricks or more bears? How many more? - solve using one-to-one correspondence, to find the leftover set etc.)

The student will be able to match pairs of identical objects in one-to-one correspondence: (Match and pair bricks according to colour e.g. have two sets of Six Bricks, one set with all 6, and 1 set that has only 5, e.g. yellow missing. The question for the students is : do we have two of every colour? etc. )

The student will be able to match pairs of related objects in one-to-one correspondence e.g. putting out knives and forks, buttoning coats i.e. buttons to button holes, putting lids on pans. (Incorporate the bricks as follows e.g.  let the bricks become chairs or benches in the park. Give each group of children 7 bears. Has every bear got a bench to sit on for the picnic etc.?

The student will be able to match equivalent and non-equivalent sets to establish the concept of more than, less than, enough, as many as (form sets from available materials e.g. a set of 6 bricks,  a set of 7 bears, a set of 5 insects. Now you can ask lots of questions, make observations and generate some comparative statements with the children e.g. there are more bricks than insects. How would you investigate the truth of this statement? Are there more bears or more insects? How many more? Make a statement that uses the word ‘fewer’? etc. etc.

Six Bricks can play an important supporting resource role in a large number of mathematics lessons; helping children to structure, manipulate, reason, make visible and verbalise their mathematical thoughts and thinking processes.

Now that’s what I call quality mathematics teaching and what I would look for as an inspector to a school.

More on www.sixbrickseducation.com

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The crossing the B-Line Mat can be used to practice, revise and embed the tables facts, which are the bedrock on which so many mathematical skills are built.

Accurate, speedy recall of tables facts is not just important, it is crucial.

The Crossing B-Line mat can be used every day when working on Tables Facts to drive MASTERY.

NOTE to all not familiar with the B-Line Mat

Interpreting the lines: On the mat we have 5 lines, starting on the bottom which is 1, then 2, the red line is 3, then 4 and the top line is 5.

How it works for these activities: In this instance, you place the brick on the ‘units’ part of the answer e.g. if I say red to 8x9, then the answer is 72, you place the red brick on 2 (the units part). If I say orange to (4x9) – 2, the you place the orange on 4, because 4x9=36 – 2 = 34 (4 is units).

If you haven’t got a B-Line A3 Mat, then grab a sheet of paper and draw 5 lines on it, about 4cm apart and make the centre one red.

So – if my students are working on three, six and nine times tables, then I will prepare some B-Line Mat activities to work on these facts, tagging a subtraction onto some so that I keep all units in the 1 to 5 range.

Start with all 6 bricks off the mat.

Here Goes………………are you ready?

Green to 4x3

Red to 5x3

Orange to 4x6

Dark Blue to 5x9

Light Blue to (6x6) – 2

Yellow (1x9) – 8

Green to (4x9) -3

Red to (8x6) -5

Orange to (9x6) – 1

Light Blue to (2x6) -11

Dark Blue to (10X9) -7

Green to (9x9)

If you have worked out all the answers, and moved the bricks accordingly, the answer is as follows:

ANSWER: Orange, Red and Dark Blue are on the RED Middle Line, with Green, Yellow and Light Blue on Line 1. (see image attached)

I did this earlier today and to quote a teacher:

"This is an absolutely amazing and engrossing methodology. I can see how you can adapt to every set of tables facts. My brain is on fire from the cognitive load. Oh my gosh, when teachers discover this, it will sweep across the world, and into every classroom. "

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It's the big day! Grobby Six Bricks goes to visit Granny. As per usual she has made a six bricks layered chocolate birthday cake for Grobby ............

QUESTION: How many differences can you spot between the two pictures?

NOTE: The 'spot the differences' is one of the activities from the 'Grobby Six Bricks - Farmyard Adventure' story book which can be read and ordered from here, with distribution worldwide https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/grobby-six-bricks-farmyard-adventure.html

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Learning Objective: the Six Bricks could be the stimulus to a lesson where students will be able to practice mindfulness of emotions and breathing techniques to promote calmness.

Procedure:

Gather all children on the carpet in a circle, or perhaps spaced out, seated or standing

Close their eyes and ask, how are you feeling right now.

Have 3 or 4 students respond, naming the feelings, perhaps write words up on the drywipe marker board under the title ‘FEELINGS’.

Now throw a RED brick onto the floor, and ask the children to think of a feeling that might be suggested by the brick colour.

Throw in a YELLOW, again ask for a feeling that they might associate.

Now play ‘The Feelings Song’: https://youtu.be/-J7HcVLsCrY

After watching the video, ask the children what feelings came up in the video and to hold up a brick that represents that colour.

Teacher assigns an emotion to each brick colour and children must remember these associations - e.g. red = anger; yellow = happiness; blue = sadness; orange = fear; green = confusion etc.

Play the song again and wherever a feeling is mentioned, they hold a brick in their right hand.

Extension: Teacher holds up any one brick in turn and the children have to show that expression or feeling in their body language.

Conclusion: all lie down on the carpet and teacher guides them through a mindfulness breathing exercise to calm and relax the body.

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There is simply an infinite number of ways that Six Bricks can be used in curriculum. There is not a singular, more had-working resource out there!

Here I am using it in Geography to drive engagement and to test knowledge of the capital cities, mountains, rivers, flags and well-known tourism landmarks of six countries.

When I say a country, they should hold up the matching colour brick. When I say a river, they hold up the brick for the country in which it is found. The same for mountains and well-known landmarks, perhaps even foods associated with a country. It can be anything!

In this case you can use an overhead projector to project the image on which you have inserted bricks. You can draw a chart and draw in or stick on 6 coloured brick rectangles etc. Whatever works!

Have you got your Six Bricks to hand? Go on – participate -

Here goes: we are focusing on RECTANGLES

1. Paris

2. Dublin

3. The Thames River

4. The Louvre

5. Flag is red and yellow

6. You will find Berlin here

7. The Apennine Mountain Range

8. This country’s flag is black, red and yellow.

9. Bull fighting is a national sport here

10. Vatican City

11. The Shannon River

12. The Sierra Nevada Mountains

13. This country’s flag is a trio of green, white and red

14. The Blackstairs Mountains

15. Madrid is the capital city

This is a very active, interactive and participatory activity. There is no hiding or disappearing below the radar for any student. All must sit up and answer by selecting and holding aloft the colour of brick that indicates the correct answer.

You see – children always have their Six Bricks on their tables at all times across the school day, ready to engage in activities such as these.

You can brick colour code ANY picture and get the children engaging e.g. it could be a skeleton of the human body in Science, a bricked timeline in History etc.

Extension: add circles in six colours and diamonds in six colours, as per image. Then say: oval Oslo, diamond Athens etc. Students hold up corresponding brick colours to show answers. Extension: When you say: 'Little Mermaid', children should be holding up light blue for Denmark. Teacher says, Jack, which shape is your light blue. Jack says: diamond teacher, because the 'Little Mermaid' is in Copenhagen harbour, the capital of Denmark' etc. Can you see how the incorporation of coding with Six Bricks drives 100% engagement by all. No such thing as asking a question here, a few hands going up, you asking one child for the answer, not really knowing what the other 29 were thinking! No - now when you ask a question, 30 bricks are held aloft and you can 'visibly see' the thought processes of ALL

What are your ideas for extending the concept into curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment?

For boxes of Six Bricks to be delivered anywhere in the world – visit with us on www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Exercising Visual Memory Skills with Six Bricks

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Exercising Visual Memory Skills with Six Bricks

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What is visual memory?

Visual memory is the ability to remember things seen visually.

Where visual memory is weak, difficulties may include:

Learning to read quickly and efficiently

Copying off the board

Recalling a series of instructions

Remembering where items have been left

Organisational skills

Copying from dictation – particularly in the correct sequence

Activity ideas to promote visual memory and visual closure:

Memory tray 1: have a number of items on a tray/table in front of the child e.g. 5 of the Six Bricks. Allow the child to view them – then cover the items and ask the child to name the 5 colours. Repeat for other combinations

Memory tray 2: place 3 bricks and two other small objects on a tray in front of the child. Allow the child to view them – then cover the items and ask the child to name them. Repeat for other combinations. (FIGURE 1 in image)

Have the child turn around and look away. Place the Six Bricks in an arrangement on the table e.g. all 6 in a row, with every second brick standing up vertically i.e. 3 horizontal and 3 vertical. Allow the child to turn around and look at the collection for 5 seconds. Now turn back. You change one item e.g. place one of the vertical bricks into the horizontal. Now the child turns back and tries to identify what is different. Repeat for other combinations. (FIGURE 2 & 2A in image)

Line up 6 bricks on the table in front of the child. Ask the child to turn around. Remove one brick. Child turns back and identifies the change. (FIGURE 3 & 3A in image)

Line up 6 bricks on the table in front of the child. Have the child carefully look at them. Ask the child to turn around and then you shift the position of one object. Ask the child to return the objects to the correct position/order. Repeat for other arrangements.

Extension: once the children have done this a few times, let them play in pairs, one taking on the role of the teacher and the other, the student.

Additionally, the Six Bricks Perceptual Skills Manual contains exercises that help exercise visual memory skills.

Further, make up your own activities for to exercise and strengthen their visual memory skills.

For bricks, books and activities, visit the international site at www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Fact: Six Bricks drives mathematical achievement.

In Ireland children spend 8 years in primary school, on average between the ages of 4.5 years to 12.5 years.

In the first year of school, which we call junior infants, their mathematics curriculum is made up of 6 STRANDS, 17 STRAND UNITS and 39 LEARNING OUTCOMES.

Six Bricks can be used to support the achievement of learning outcomes for most of the Reception Year strand units. Here’s an example for the strand NUMBER and the STRAND UNIT COUNTING with it’s 4 learning outcomes in Junior Infants / Reception.

Look how we use Six Bricks, and let me say, it is highly effective teaching and consequent learning when you utilise the CPA approach.

Strand: Number

Strand Unit: Counting:

The child should be enabled to count the number of objects in a set, 1-10 (In pairs, my students combine their 2 sets of six bricks to make 12. Now we use bricks to make all sorts of set sizes, count them, draw the collections and write the cardinal number for each set)

The child should be enabled to count objects, pushing them aside while counting (My children Count bricks – set of 5 or 6 or set of 10 or 12. They throw a random collection out on the table and then count them, pushing each brick aside while counting)

The child should be enabled to count regular arrays or rows before random groups (My children achieve this using six bricks or 12 bricks. The line up 5 bricks for example, and count by pushing each out in turn i.e. touch, say next number in the count, push aside….)

The child should be enabled to use number rhymes and stories (Six in the bed and the little one said……… in this case line up six bricks as teddies and each time they roll over, one falls over the edge of the table….. OR 6 green bottles sitting on the wall……. Again, combine sets of bricks to build a brick wall, pretend the bricks are bottles, stand six on the wall and sing the song together. Every time they sing ‘if one little bottle should accidentally fall, there’d be….’ – knock off a bottle. Children love this.)

Every Reception / Year 1 Class in every school in the world should be plugging the structured learning materials that are Six Bricks, into their mathematics curriculums.

Make Six Bricks part of how you and your school do mathematics.

Join the learning revolution!

Note: if you need 30 sets of bricks, check this out, we fly them out to you with DHL: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/30-sets-of-6-bricks.html

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This is a simple game that can be played in pairs or threes. The focus is on second language learning of colours, in this case we are teaching the colours ‘as gaeilge’ – gaelic language here in Ireland.

Green = glas

Red = dearg

Orange = oráiste

Light Blue = gorm éadrom

Dark Blue = dúghorm

Yellow = buí

Objective:

We are learning the Irish language words for each of the six colours.

Be the first to stack all your Six Bricks into a tower, end on end.

Materials:

A dice with the six colours and the six Irish words (customise an existing dice or make one out of cardboard. Let the kids make it, a lesson in itself!)

A set of Six bricks for each player.

Procedure

Each person takes a turn to roll the dice.

Call out the colour that turns up, in GAELIC language.

If you have that colour brick, then add it to your tower, if you don’t, then ‘pass’.

The first to build their Six Bricks tower is the winner.

NOTE: you decide what the second language is in your country and customise the game accordingly.

If you need to buy sets of Six Bricks, Teacher Manuals or Activity mats – just visit www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Task sheets are ideal for extending Six Bricks into the formal mathematics school curriculum, as we are doing here in Ireland.

After hands-on, playful, teacher-directed activities with sets of Six Bricks, the children would be presented with a photocopied worksheet to complete individually or in pairs.

This worksheet is available as a PDF, just email me at mpender@cpdcollege.com and I’ll email the PDF version back to you, it’s only an image below.

Learning Objectives of the Lesson: the children will be able to -

Count sets of bricks to 6

Draw and count specified sets of bricks to 6

Match the correct number to the correct set of bricks (cardinality)

Write numbers 1 to 6 for each set of bricks

Procedure:

Start with hands-on concrete exploration activity.

Have 6 flashcards with a single numeral 1 to 6 on each. Shuffle the cards. Select and hold up the flashcard. Children must set out that number of bricks on their table and say the number.

Repeat a number of times.

In groups of 4, let children take the role of the teacher in groups and call out numbers, with the group counting out the equivalent sets.

Task: photocopy and give each child a copy of the worksheet. Read the instructions with the children. Do an example on the board (model). Now let the children complete their own task sheet.

Task is to:

“Draw the correct amount of bricks in each box. Colour the bricks. Write each number 6 more times on the line.”

The children will have to draw the correct number of bricks in each box according to the number indicated. This will require number recognition, drawing, counting, checking and matching equivalent sets to equivalent numbers. They will also practice copying and writing the number.

What a rich little mathematics learning activity, all centred around Six Bricks.

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There are hundreds of mental arithmetic maths activities that you can do with Six Bricks and the ‘Crossing the B-Line Mat’ from simple addition to multiplication, division and so much more.

Here I outline a simple addition / subtraction activity.

See image of mat here: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/crossing-the-b-line...

Procedure:

Start with the 6 Bricks located in the 6 blank boxes, located off the lines.

Imagine a vertical line down the centre of the mat – lines 1 to 5 are on the left and lines 6 to 10 are to the right (and you thought you could only see 5 lines!)

As you call a sum, the children work it out and move the required brick to that line e.g. if yellow is to 4+3, then the child should place yellow on 7, which is the second line up on the right.

OK - mats out, bricks in holding blank boxes, ARE YOU READY? - let's go.........

Dark blue to 9-5

Red to 2+3

Light Blue to 7+1

Dark Blue to 9-7

Red to 5+4

Orange to 8-7

Yellow to 4+6

Orange to 6-3

Light Blue to 7+3

Green to 2+6

Orange to 7-3

Yellow to 4+2

Orange to 10-3

Red to 1+1

Green to 3+7

Light Blue to 8-4

Yellow to 5+2

Green to 5-3

Light Blue to 10-3

If children have worked out all their answers correctly, then ALL bricks end up on the second line

What you did above is just 1 of the 300+ activities from the 2 books.

Book 1 https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/crossing-the-b-line...

Book 2 https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/crossing-the-b-line...

Where ever you are in the world, If you need materials, just visit and order at https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/

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Draw 6 bricks on the drywipe marker board, colour each and assign a number e.g. 1 to 6 as per image. You could also draw the bricks on a chart and display on the wall at the front of the room, or draw them up in Excel and display on an interactive whiteboard. Whatever works for your situation.

Procedure:

Call a number and students must build that total using their choice of numbers.

Always ask questions to elicit if answers are correct and the child’s thinking:

Teacher says - Give me 9:

Teacher: “John, what colours have you?”

John: “I have a yellow and an orange.”

Teacher: “Why yellow + orange?”

John: “Teacher, because 6+3 make 9.”

Teacher says - Give me 5

Teacher: “Jacinta, how did you make 5?”

Jacinta: “Orange and Red.

Teacher: “Correct, has anyone a different combination that makes 5 altogether?” etc.

Teacher says - Give me 14

Teacher: “Mary, Jacinta has a yellow, red, dark blue and green. Is she correct?”

Extension 1: let a child ask the questions for a change.

Extension 2: let them play ‘GIVE ME’ in groups of 4, rotating the role of teacher / caller.

Extension 3: children could be asked to stick 3 random bricks together, draw them, colour them and record the total beside the stack. Draw and record 5 different stacks of 3.

Extension 4: scale the ceiling of the numbers according to the number experience of the children e.g. the 6 numbers could be 30, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90

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There is no end to the application of Six Bricks within the primary school curriculum.

This Six Bricks themed pack of cards for just €2.49 enables your students to play 16+ different card games as they play, socialise, have fun and learn together.

The cards come on two A3 gloss laminated 350 gm cards ready for you to cut out, as seen in the image below.

There are just so many ways these cards can be used in every early years / Reception / Learning Support Room.

To READ all about how to use the cards, or to purchase, click HERE: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/the-matching-pairs...

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Poetry in Bricks or is it Bricks in Poetry?

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Poetry in Bricks or is it Bricks in Poetry?

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Objective: To sequence the 6 bricks colours to support a recall of a poem by reading or recitation.

Breakfast Menu

Little jolly Robin went hunting one day,

Down amongst the daffodils, still blooming in May!

Hopping along the riverbank, so dark and so cold,

Out popped blackbird, oh so big and so bold!

Both chirped and chatted about trees to explore,

As a hungry buzzard circled, still looking for more!

......... by Martin Pender

OK - won't be shortlisted for the Nobel prize for poetry, but sure it's all about having a go and having some fun. That's what I tell the kids. Do it for yourself and do it for fun.

Each of the Six Bricks can be used to represent a line or an image in the poem. As the poem is read or recited or performed, children choose a brick to represent key points in the telling, which will help recall the plot.

We can also use the visual colours of bricks to recall the plot of stories etc. In our minds we associate images to the bricks and lay them out in a sequence as we listen to the story or poem. We then recall the story or poem by ‘reading the brick sequence’.

In the poem above, as per image, I have chosen a red for robin, yellow for daffodils, dark blue for the cold river, the orange beak of blackbird, green trees and the clear blue sky with the buzzard circling on the thermal up currents.

Go on – can you or your students write a six-line six bricks inspired rhyme?

Hundreds more ideas in my training course on www.sixbrickstraining.com

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GROBBY Mental Arithmetic & Problem Solving

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GROBBY Mental Arithmetic & Problem Solving

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When using Six Bricks for mental arithmetic, then it is important that all have them in the same colour sequence. Remember our character and story about GROBBY. You can have a big poster size GROBBY on the wall and children have their own GROBBY stack on the table as per image below.

We can use Six Bricks at every class age and stage for fun engaging active mental arithmetic problem solving. I have just 5 of a million possible examples below.

I want you to work out and write down the answers to the following 5 questions. Use your 6 bricks GROBBY to help you. You will come to appreciate how the bricks support thinking, mathematical reasoning and problem solving.

Please work out the following little problems for yourself and write down your answers, before checking.

Don’t look yet, but I have inserted the answers below to support self-correction.

1. If each brick is worth one more than the previous, yellow is 6, what is the value of green?

2. If each brick is worth 3 more than the previous, red is 21, what is the value of dark blue?

3. If Y is 5 and G is 25, and the same value separates each brick, what is the value of each brick in the sequence?

4. If Orange is 1000 and the difference between each adjoining brick colour is 110, what is the value of each brick?

5. If light blue is10 and each brick is 2 more than the previous, what is the total value of the brick stack?

How did you do?

Is this a good way to do maths? Why?

Answers: 1 (11), 2 (12), 3 (5,9,13,17,21,25), 4 (1220, 1110, 1000, 890, 780, 670), 5 (66))

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In school, teachers are always looking out for ways to gel desired learner outcomes into rich learning tasks that engage the students.

Here’s another such task inspired by Six Bricks!

Objectives:

To imagine and create a character from a single brick

To name and dress the character

To detail a mission that the character carries out

To share your finished work with your audience

This is Groblet, who likes to dress in natural seasonal colours, usually selected from the great outdoors. Groblet and friends are all around us, often hiding in plain sight.

Because they choose seasonal colours, they often blend into the background of open fields and small gardens, into wild hedges, trees, bushes and flower beds. There could be a Groblet watching you right now, can you not see him? You will have to look more closely!

The mission of every Groblet is to help clean up the environment of the trash that is carelessly discarded by mindless humans; paper and plastics and all sorts of wrappers and wrapping! They do a lot of unseen work, but we must help too.

Groblet’s mantra for all kids out there regarding the great outdoors and nature: ‘see it – pick it – bin it’.

Leave no trace!

After a day of picking, Groblet likes nothing better than to lie in a warm sunny spot on the banks of a cool crystal clear stream and soak in the surrounding sounds of nature.

(Orla, a sixth class student, found this a fun, open ended task that drew on many skills: imagination & visualisation, arts & crafts, technology & camera work, writing & story telling ………. And so much more. This was a rich learning experience and the learning outcomes were achieved).

Note: kids will come up with hundreds of alternative characters and missions. Just give them the chance to surprise you.

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Game Rules:

2 players, each player starts with 6 Bricks

One player has warm colours (2Y, 2R, 2O), the other cold colours (2G, 2B, 2LB)

Winner removes all opponent’s bricks

Each player places 2 bricks on the warm and cold squares

Each roll the dice - highest number starts

Player 1 adds 2 bricks to any squares (not on logo)

Player 2 adds 2 bricks to any squares (not on logo)

Repeat again so all 6 bricks are placed

Player can move 1 brick to any open square (including logo square)

No brick can move diagonally

You take an opponent’s brick if you trap that brick between 2 of your bricks - with your move

If, after removing a brick - you can trap another brick by moving the same brick again - you may go again

Game ends when your opponent has only 1 piece left

Link to A3 laminated Game Board which contains 'TRAP' on one side and 'LAST BRICK STANDING' on the reverse - just €0.95: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/last-brick-standing-trap.html

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The Ultimate Six Bricks Kit for Schools 

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The Ultimate Six Bricks Kit for Schools 

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The absolute complete kit for just €299

Includes:

• 32 Packs of Bricks

• 32 x Crossing the B-Line Mats

• 32 x A4 Answer Coding Rockets

• 8 x Teaching Manuals (500+ Activities)

• 1 x FREE IWB Software

• 23 x Curriculum Activity Mats

• Plus many other items

VISIT Sixbrickseducation.com to order your kit  OR CALL the office in Ireland on 00 353 53 92 30344

Direct Link: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/the-ultimate-class-kit-for-six-bricks.html

Bring Six Bricks to your school today!

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Are you teaching young children to read?

Along with learning the 42 letter sound code, they will need to automatically recognise and be able to recall 72 tricky words. You cannot work them out using sounds alone, that is why we call them ‘tricky’!

There is an A3 gloss laminated mat with 36 words on one side and 36 on the other, 72 altogether.

Link to mat with first set of 36 : https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/tricky-word-bricks-1...

Link to mat with second set of 36 : https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/tricky-word-bricks-3...

Link to the supporting software: https://sixbrickssoftware.com/v3/#/trickywords2

I say to the children: look at the 'red arrow' row -

1. Place the orange brick on ‘all’

2. Place the red brick on ‘to’

3. Place the light blue brick on ‘was’

4. Place the green brick on ‘are’

5. Place the yellow brick on ‘be’

6. Place the dark blue brick on ‘do’

As you make the calls, you mark your own board. Keep an eye on the students that find it challenging as you circulate.

To correct – call the colour code and children can see if they have them all correct.

In this instance: Yellow, Light Blue, Red, Dark Blue, Green and Orange.

I can also correct and reinforce by using the FREE IWB software.

Such possibility in the hands of a skilled teacher.

Guaranteed: in my class, using the bricks, A3 mat cards and the IWB software, the children will out perform next door if they are not implementing this hands-on measure for learning the ‘Tricky Words’!

That’s Six Bricks delivering for curriculum and for student learning.

Are you using any of these materials?

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Real Problem-Solving & Calculating with Six Bricks

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Real Problem-Solving & Calculating with Six Bricks

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Children need to be able to perceive, calculate and problem-solve with large numbers across the various units of measurement in mathematics.

For sure, Six Bricks has a role to play here. The bricks become part of the visualisation and working-out process. They support group mathematical discussions / maths talk, while injecting an element of fun into the problem-solving and calculation activities.

The problems cannot be solved without the bricks, as you need to extrapolate some numbers using small amounts of bricks before using that information to calculate the answer, the big number!

Here are some examples for incorporating Six Bricks into calculating with length, area, weight, time, capacity/volume and money.

You can adjust the number ceiling and level of challenge to fit your class.

Can you work these out?

Length: From my front door to the door of the post office in the village is 2.246km. How many bricks, end to end would that be?

Area: My kitchen measures 4m X 3.5m. How many bricks will it take to tile it?

Weight: If John who is 45kg sat on one side of the seesaw, how many bricks would be in the brick cube on the other side to balance him?

Time: How many bricks could you pick 1-by-1 off a floor and put in a bin in 1 hour?

Volume: How many bricks would fit in a trailer measuring 2.4m Long X 1.2m Wide X 1m High

Money: Bricks can be bought in the following quantities and prices: 1 for €0.10, 10 for €0.90, 100 for €8.00, 1000 for €60.00. How much will 129,365 bricks cost me?

Have you purchased Six Bricks materials and incorporated them into your curriculum to support teaching, learning and assessment?

Visit the international Six Bricks shop at: www.sixbrickseducation.com

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This is Grobby Six Bricks who is off on an adventurous spring walk here in Ireland.

I wonder what will Grobby see?

Who will Grobby meet?

How is Grobby feeling this spring day?

When Grobby gets stuck, how will Grobby use that Six Bricks Pack to get out of trouble?

These are just some of the many questions the students will ponder as they ‘Think, Draw & Write’. (Think/Draw/Write is an approach that works very well with R/Yr1/Yr2/Yr3)

The format for this writing workshop is to think about Grobby hiking around the garden / countryside, draw the picture / vision or set of pictures.  Next, they write a little story, their writing feeding off the story drawings.

Can you and your students write a Grobby Six Bricks story?

Check out www.sixbrickseducation.ie for more ideas, materials and training.

(Note: for those of you new to Six Bricks - GROBBY gets the name from the brick stack colour sequence on Grobby's back!)

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Six Bricks can be leveraged to help achieve countless learning outcomes across curriculums, across schools.

Ireland's schools are pouring into the Six Bricks approach.

Six Bricks can be used for carrying out surveys, capturing and graphing data, followed by interpretation, in a hands-on, engaging and connected way.

Activity steps

Ask the children one question and give each possible answer a colour. For example, how did you get to school today?

Yellow = Bike

Orange = Walked

Green = Bus

Light Blue = Car

Red = Van

Dark Blue = Other

Each child answers the question by finding the right colour of the brick and placing it on his/her mode of transport to school.

The bricks are stacked together by colour.

Count the number of bricks in each colour/tower and talk about which bar is the highest/shortest/biggest/ smallest.

Tips and ideas

You can also translate the brick bar graph into a bar graph on paper as an introduction to statistics.

Questions to ask:

How many children participated in the survey?

By what means did the largest cohort come to school?

How many children can by van?

This survey could be adapted to favourite fruits, T.V. programmes, sports, foods, animals etc.

What ‘BRICKSTISTIC’ activities will you engage your students in?

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Are you ready with your Six Bricks?

Can you match the country to it’s capital city?

Put your six brick colours in order in a stack from top to bottom, so that the capital colour matches the countries 1 to 6.

How did you do?

How else can you use this technique in curriculum, using Excel sheets and an interactive whiteboard?

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Build Mastery of Tables Facts with Six Bricks

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Build Mastery of Tables Facts with Six Bricks

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Accurate recall and mastery of the 144 addition, 144 subtraction, 144 multiplication and 144 division tables facts is fundamental to success in mathematics.

We have developed the Six Bricks approach, whereby students can test and self-correct themselves on all 576 tables facts.

Ideal for school or home.

Students take an A3 Table Facts card, select a table, code the rocket with the brick answer sequence and then correct by comparing their sequence to the Master Correction Sheet.

Watch the video to see a demonstration.

Packs of 25 A3 Addition, 25 A3 Subtraction and 25 A3 Correction Cards are available for €69 from Six Bricks Education Shop (75 A3 Gloss laminated cards in pack)

Packs of 25 A3 Multiplication, 25 A3 Division and 25 A3 Correction Cards are available for €69 from Six Bricks Education Shop (75 A3 Gloss laminated cards in pack)

If your class are learning tables facts, then equip them to self-practice, self-correct and to aim for & build mastery.

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In the Reception/Infants/ Year 1 class, the children can use their Six Bricks to illustrate and animate the story of the song as they sing along.

Here, three girls from the senior class are helping out and singing along with Gayle, showing some actions to the song ‘Five Little Ducks’.

In an R/Yr 1 class this song would be supporting such maths concepts as: the number count sequence to 5, the story of 5, one less each time, counting down / back etc.

What other songs could children sing and add Six Bricks actions to?

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The Six Bricks can represent 6 coin values in this case 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 20c and 50c. You can adapt for your own currency wherever you are in the world.

Whereas it is difficult to have coins for everybody, the bricks are always there on the tables ready to take on any role!

The problems can be for Year 7+ or reduced to numbers from 1 to 10 for R/Yr1.

In this instance, I am creating a shopping challenge for children who can add and subtract to 100. (Yr2)

Procedure:

Decide the ceiling level of mental arithmetic for your class.

Assign notes / coinage to the Six Bricks. Now choose 6 products for the shop and price them to work with the money values assigned to your bricks so that children can show prices and give change using bricks.

Make a poster for the wall or use your computer and graphics to do it in Excel and project using your poster using your interactive whiteboard.

Questions: click bricks together and hold up to show:

The price of the eraser

The price of the pencil

The price of the stapler

The price of the stamper

The price of the highlighter

The price of the calculator

Giving Change

If I gave the shop keeper 20c for the eraser, hold up the change I got back?

If I gave the shop keeper 40c for the pencil, what change did I receive?

When I bought the stapler, what change did I get from €1?

Other calculations:

How much will the highlighter and eraser cost me?

I gave the shopkeeper all my bricks except green, what did I buy?

Do you appreciate how active and interactive this exercise is? Everybody is engaging and working out the problems and holding up the answer. There are manipulatives to support visualisation and working out. It is way more engaging, meaningful and productive than a low-level worksheet!

How will you adapt and use this approach in your classroom, with your unique students and at their level of functioning?

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As a teacher, I love the ‘Six Bricks Problem Solving Circle’.  So do the students, as they love the mental challenges. It can be used from Reception to Year 15+. You can do thousands of quick mental problems with it and just Six bricks!

The circle and bricks provide a strong visual over which they will lay and attach their thinking and problem solving strategies.

The circles can be on pupil desks or perhaps all gather round one on the floor.

Procedure:

Decide on the mental arithmetic and problem solving you want your children to engage with.

Throw a few bricks into the circle.

Assign values to the bricks and clearly tell the students the values.

Pose a problem

Solve the problem

Examples based on picture:

If all bricks have a value of 4, but the red has a value of 6, what s the value of the circle? How did you do it?

If all the bricks have a value of 2, what is the value of the circle? Now remove 3 bricks, what is the value of the circle now? How did you get it?

If the cold bricks are worth 4 each, and the warm bricks are worth double that number, what is the total value of the circle?

If each brick is worth 1/3, what is the value of the circle? How do you know?

This is just 4 examples. Application is unlimited in scope and number ceiling.

Remember: you can have less bricks or more bricks in the circle, take out, add in, do whatever to exercise their mental arithmetic and problem-solving skill. The bricks can be small or large numbers, fractions, decimals or even percentages. They can represent goats and sheep, money or any other values. You say what’s in the circle, pose the problem, they manipulate and solve.

FREE Problem Solving Circle in software tool: https://sixbrickssoftware.com/v3/#/problemsolvingcircle

Problem Solving Circle in shop: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/crack-the-code-tools-problem-solving-circle.html

Will you use the Six Bricks ‘Problem Solving circle’ approach?

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This Six Bricks approach can be used to support mental arithmetic in every class from Reception to Year 6 and beyond.

It is crucially important to get your students doing mental arithmetic at every age and stage across the primary school.

Six Bricks can be a very productive strategy to employ and here is the approach.

Procedure:

Place a chart on the wall or an image on the IWB or draw 6 brick images in each of the six colours on the drywipe marker board.

Assign a value to each brick, in the image below we simply go 1 to 6.

Now call out problems and the students must make the solution visible with their bricks.

The key point is: ALL students must engage and show a solution. Very often, there will be more than one solution.

I say to the students:

Build a stack that has a total of 9? What answers might they hold up? (A is one solution)

Build a stack that has a total of 7.

Build a stack, combining 4 numbers to make 9.

What is the value of Stack B in the picture?

Teacher can hold up a stack and ask: what is the total value of my brick stack?

Extension:

The numbers you assign to the bricks will vary according to the class you teach and the ceiling of their number experience e.g. a Year 3 could have 6 numbers assigned as follows: 1, 9, 10, 100, 1000, 300 – see all the fun and challenge in these 6 numbers.

A Year 6 might have 6 numbers as follows: ¼, ½, 1/3, 3/6, 2/3, 2/8 with a question like, build a stack with a value of 1.5 etc.

What other ways can you expand on this idea?

Is this a worthwhile activity for your class?

Is your school adopting Six Bricks into their curriculum approach?

Lots more ideas and materials on www.sixbrickseducation.com

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Delighted to announce the availability of our new Six Bricks number line to 10. The intervals between numbers accommodate a full Lego Duplo brick.

It is ideal for all number work in classes R / Year 1 / Infants.

Designed for hands on learning using the Concrete Pictorial Abstract approach. Children can count forward and back while inserting bricks, add 2 sets or 3 sets together, count on, count back, find missing parts of set, work on ordinal position etc. see link for ideas.

(There are sets of addition bonds on the mat itself for the children to write down, carry out and record answers)

A must for all junior classrooms where doing maths well counts!

These number lines measure 670mm X 240mm, are printed on durable gloss laminate card and fold in the middle.

Ideal for individual, pair or group work.

Read all about it and order your number lines here: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/my-first-number-line...

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Hi ALL & Welcome to the Six Bricks Idea Centre.

Here, there are 101+ Ideas to get you going, in no particular order, something for every class, age and stage, just to get you off to a fun, engaging and hands-on start!

There are 500+ additional ones in the various Six Bricks Teacher Manuals which are all available on the website www.sixbrickseducation.com and are delivered worldwide by DHL couriers.

Six Bricks are an amazing resource for all classrooms and can be used in the most creative and amazing ways.

Within the range there are:

Sets of Six Bricks: from single packs, to multi-packs & kits

7 Manuals full of activities

FREE Interactive Whiteboard Software

Dozens of Activity Mats

Cut out bricks that can be magnetised for drywipe marker boards

Various game boards and activities

Grobby Six Bricks Storybook

Online Training Course from www.sixbrickstraining.com

For all your Six Bricks materials, just check out the shop at this link https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/sixbricks.html  and we ship worldwide daily, supplying you with your tracking number once order is placed and dispatched.

If you have any questions, just email the team at support@sixbrickseducation.com

Enjoy browsing the many Six Bricks activities here in the idea centre.

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Teachers – this idea is for everyone, whether you are a Reception or Year 10 teacher! ALL classrooms in ALL schools, ALL around the world need this approach!

Scenario: in the classroom, we call out a mental artithmetic question. How many of the 25 students will engage the question? Fewer still will volunteer to answer? BUT, at the end you only hear ONE answer from ONE student! What were the others thinking? .. or were they thinking?

HELLO the Six Bricks approach where ALL can Excel @ Mental Arithmetic.

Procedure:

All children have their Six Bricks on the table.

Create an Excel Sheet with brick colours and put numbers beside the bricks according to the number level of the students e.g. Set A is for my Reception/Year 1 students where we are working within the number range 5 to 10.

When I call a question, you have to hold up the colour brick that matches the answer!

Are you ready?

The Mental Arithmetic Questions:

What is the total of 4+3? (if child works out correctly then he/she hold up YELLOW)

If I had two groups of 5, how many would I have? if child works out correctly then he/she hold up Dark Blue)

I had 8C and spent 2C on a lollipop. How much had I left? if child works out correctly then he/she hold up ORANGE)

What is the total of 2+1+2? (what did you hold up?)

I had nine 1c coins. I lost one. How many had I left? (Ans the answer is …….8….RED……)

What is 6 plus 3? (Yep, light blue)

The trick is to create an Excel or Chart for the wall or just do it on a drywipe marker board and add magnetised colour paper squares to your six answers.

The sky is the limit in applications, keep changing those numbers.

In picture B, we are working on multiplication X 5 with Year 3.

What is 8 times 5?

I have 6 X 5c coins. How much have I?

What is 10 x 5, subtract 5?

You get the idea. The sky is the limit!

I mean, look at B, Year 8:

2X + 2 = 62, what is ‘x’? (did you get ………….dark blue?)

2y – 10 = 100, what is ‘y’? (........... are you holding up yellow?)

Teachers around the globe, if you want to engage ALL your students, have ALL students work out ALL problems and ALL show their answer/thinking, then use the “Six Bricks – Excel @ Mental Arithmetic” approach.

Note: if you have an IWB in your classroom, then use Excel spreadsheets to create and store your files, as they are easily created and retrieved.

If you need my Excel just drop me an email to mpender@cpdcollege.com and I’ll send it back. (you can also just use the drywipemarker board or charts on walls)

(if you need bricks & books: https://shop.sixbrickseducation.com/30-sets-of-6-bricks.html)

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There are many classrooms that have lots of playful learning materials, with Six Bricks being a further addition.

In these classrooms, Six Bricks can be combined in clever ways with existing materials to increase the learning opportunities.

In the picture below, I have combined and set out a particular set of objects and we are going to use our positional language to say where things are relative to others.

Teacher asks: “Mary, where is the orange teddy?”

Now, there is not just one answer here. There are many many correct answers here, and probing will elicit them.

The orange teddy is sitting on the yellow brick.

The orange teddy is beside the blue dragonfly.

The orange teddy is to the left of the yellow teddy.

The orange teddy is directly behind the green teddy who is sitting on an orange brick, beside a light blue brick that is all alone!

You get the idea – set up the scenario for the language functions on which you want to work.

Where is the yellow spider? ( what are all the possible answers?)

Why is there nothing on the light blue brick? (young children will speculate wildly: it's too hot to sit on OR a dragon came by and ate the pink teddy and ladybird OR .........)

Extension: place insects under bricks; place bears behind, beside and in front of bricks; sandwich a fly between two bricks, ..... above all, have fun, fun, fun.

Allow the children in groups to set out pictures with 6B & objects, and ask & answer questions.

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There are many classrooms that have lots of playful learning materials, with Six Bricks being a further addition.

In these classrooms, Six Bricks can be combined in clever ways with existing materials to increase the learning opportunities.

In the picture below, I have combined and set out a particular set of objects and we are going to use our positional language to say where things are relative to others.

Teacher asks: “Mary, where is the orange teddy?”

Now, there is not just one answer here. There are many many correct answers here, and probing will elicit them.

The orange teddy is sitting on the yellow brick.

The orange teddy is beside the blue dragonfly.

The orange teddy is to the left of the yellow teddy.

The orange teddy is directly behind the green teddy who is sitting on an orange brick, beside a light blue brick that is all alone!

You get the idea – set up the scenario for the language functions on which you want to work.

Where is the yellow spider? ( what are all the possible answers?)

Why is there nothing on the light blue brick? (young children will speculate wildly: it's too hot to sit on OR a dragon came by and ate the pink teddy and ladybird OR .........)

Extension: place insects under bricks; place bears behind, beside and in front of bricks; sandwich a fly between two bricks, ..... above all, have fun, fun, fun.

Allow the children in groups to set out pictures with 6B & objects, and ask & answer questions.

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This move mat can be used for a variety of skill building activities for example:

Identification of numbers 1 to 9

Identification of colours

Identification of shapes

Adding 2 sets together with totals to a maximum of 9 and marking answers

Adding 3 sets together with totals to a maximum of 9 and marking answers

Here is a quick example:

1. Place a red brick on the green rectangle

2. Place a yellow brick on 7

3. Place a light blue brick on an orange shape

4. Place a green brick on a 10-sided shape

5. Place an orange on the number you get when you add 4+4

6. Place a dark blue on the number that comes between 4 and 6 on the number line

Perhaps you might focus call outs on a singular activity, such as calling out 2 addends and children mark totals e.g. red on 3+2, green on 2+4, yellow on 6+3, orange on 5+2 etc.

There are just so many ways that you can make call outs which require the children to listen carefully, process the information and demonstrate understanding by correctly placing the required brick onto the mat.

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This is the mat as conceived and designed by Brent Hutcheson. There are up to 300 activities for this Crossing the B-Line movement mat. The 2 manuals are available in the shop on Six Bricks Education.

This mat is used to build countless skills, from perceptual and spatial awareness skills, to carefully listening and following instructions, to the vocabulary of movement and key number skills.

Let us do just one activity as an example of how the mat works. For this activity, the bottom line is 1, second is 2, mid-line is 3, next is 4 and top line is 5.

Begin with all 6 bricks on the B-line (The red line).

Ideally, you would call the moves and have a child move their bricks. In this exercise they would be working on exercising their listening skills, number, colour and spatial awareness skills etc.

For example, here are the moves 19 moves that a teacher would call out for this exercise.

01. Move Yellow to 4

02. Move Light Blue to 1

03. Move Green to 5

04. Move Orange to 2

05. Move Dark Blue to 5

06. Move Red to 2

07. Move Green to 2

08. Move Light Blue to 4

09. Move Dark Blue to 1

10. Move Red to 5

11. Move Yellow to 3

12. Move Orange to 5

13. Move Red to 3

14. Move Green to 4

15. Move Light Blue to 1

16. Move Orange to 3

17. Move Dark Blue to 5

18. Move Green to 3

19. Finally - Move Dark Blue to 1”

If you have followed the instructions correctly, then your mat will have:

Both Blues are on line 1. The rest of your bricks are on B-line

There are 100’s of exercises that use the Crossing the B-Line mat to build perceptual, spatial reasoning, mathematical and literacy skills.

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As teachers, we are tasked to develop childrens’ oral language skills i.e. listening, speaking and communication skills.

Here’s a little Six Bricks activity that does all 3 at the same time! This activity can be differentiated to match the level of the children you teach. Keep the construction simple for R/Year 1, and increasingly more challenging the older they are. Find their 'zone of proximal development'.

Activity steps

Prepare a model using basic bricks and place it somewhere in the room where the children cannot see it.

Divide the children into groups of 4–6, and ask them to pick one person from the group – the communicator.

The communicator goes to see how the model is built and returns to explain it to his/her group.

The group should try to build according to the instructions, and the communicator is not allowed to build and has to keep his/her hands behind his/her back.

The communicator can go back and forth several times to check and remember details.

Continue until the groups have finalised the model, then bring it out and compare whether it is the same.

Ask the groups:

What was easy or difficult about remembering the model?

Which “tricks” did you use to remember?

What was it like trying to follow the instructions?

How can you help each other in the next round?

Tip: If you want to challenge the groups further, ask them to swap communicator after half the time has passed.

Challenge Extension: keep count of how many times the communicator had to return to the model for a look? The group whose communicator makes the fewest trips is the winner.

Plenary Discussion: what does great communication require?

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Evolution, Natural Selection, Adaptation & Six Bricks

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Evolution, Natural Selection, Adaptation & Six Bricks

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The best teachers use a ‘Lesson Hook’ to start a lesson in a memorable, engaging way from the get go.

It’s approaching Spring in Ireland and the daffodil bulbs occupying a sheltered sunny spot are in full bloom.

Ms. Pender, a second-level biology teacher, is beginning a chapter on ‘Evolution, Natural Selection & Adaptation’. In a moment of teacher inspiration, she sees a way in which she can use Six Bricks to launch into the unit.

Earlier, she slipped outside to the daffodils and shrubbery and placed Six Bricks into the vegetation, in a very pre-determined way. The bricks have now transformed, and for the purpose of the learning unit, they are now 6 coloured insects!

To begin, the lesson, she is going to bring the class out, position them with their backs to the daffodils and say:

Look at me, do not turn until I say so. There are colourful insects in the vegetation today.

I want you to tell me, if you were a hungry bird:

Which insect would you have eaten first?

Follow on questions:

How many brick insects can you see?

Which ones stand out?

Which ones blend in?

Are there any brick insects that are very difficult to see?

Why are some more difficult to see than others? (look hard, because all six bricks are there!)

This lesson hook will have grabbed the attention of the students. Back in the classroom, Ms. Pender can reference their experience in the garden as she traverses and explains the concepts of Evolution, Natural Selection & Adaptation, as she shows images of adaptation in the animal, bird and insect kingdoms.

Who would have thought that Six Bricks could be so central to such a lesson.

With a little creative thought and adaptation (pardon the pun!) Six Bricks can become part of hundreds of lessons across curriculum and across classrooms.

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In the early years children measure and compare objects using non-standard units. Six Bricks are perfectly sized non-standard units and can be used by students to measure and compare a host of items. Children work in pairs to measure the length and height of selected objects around the classroom.

Be sure to make a simple task sheet to guide their work , with tasks written out in the level of language of the children. Add illustrations or little drawings beside key words e.g. a drawing of a pencil or ruler etc.

Insert a blank box on the task sheet where they will record their findings.

How many bricks long is my pencil?

How many bricks long is my ruler?

How many bricks long is my eraser?

How many bricks long is my lunch box?

How many bricks long is my shoe?

How many bricks long is my Jack’s arm?

How many bricks high is my chair?

How many bricks high is the standing book?

How many bricks high is my knee?

How many bricks high is my lunch box?

How many bricks high is my school bag?

Once they have carried out the task, made their recordings and gathered the data, then it is time for a discussion. You can ask all sorts of questions, for example:

Which was longer, your shoe or the pencil? How much longer?

Which was taller, your school bag or chair? By how much?

What a wonderful hands-on exercise in mathematics and a super use of Six Bricks to facilitate it i.e. all children using the same non-standard unit.

Think of other ways you can use Six Bricks within your school mathematics curriculum.

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Learning to Read with Six Bricks - Part 1

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Learning to Read with Six Bricks - Part 1

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I am a massive fan of the best phonics programme in the world. Ireland’s schools have been using this programme for the past 12+ years. In a survey last year, 91% of schools indicated they were using the programme. In the last international PIRLS results, Ireland came 4th. in the world and 1st. in Europe. Friends, the best early reading programme for me is Jolly Phonics.

However, you can plug Six Bricks into any reading programme, I plug mine into the best.

As you know, to read and write successfully, effectively and independently, children must learn to ‘decode’ for reading and ‘encode’ for writing. There are 42 letter sounds in the code for 4 & 5 year olds to master, and amazingly, most of them do. Instead of learning words, we learn to decode.

The road to reading begins with the first six letter sounds – s, a, t, i, p and n. Hmmm – I’m seeing a connection already, Six Sounds ……… and I have Six Bricks. Whatever could I do? Well, quite a lot it seems.

In addition to what you normally do, you can add a great Six Bricks element.

Procedure:

Each child has Six bricks.

I write my six sounds up on the classroom marker board and place a magnetised cut out brick under each or a magnetised real brick.

I say/make the ‘sound’ e.g. /t/ and the child or children have to hear it, identify the grapheme and hold up the matching brick, in this case YELLOW. When I make the /p/ sound, I should see GREEN held high by all, hopefully. Great way to test and check.

Once they know their six sounds, the next thing to do is to read some words.

Task: Using the letter sound code, can you decode and read the three words in the red boxes in the image?

What other words could you create with your bricks and hold up for the child to decode / read aloud?

Decoding is reading.

We can also write words i.e. encode.

We can do it with bricks too. Studs always face right, emphasising the directionality of blending and reading English.

Can you make the word /pin/ with your bricks?

So – that is a green, followed by a red, followed by dark blue?

Can you make the words in black in the image below?

NOTE: children will enjoy blending, working out and reading the ‘brick words’ you hold up. They will enjoy practising skills in making words themselves using the bricks. All the while they are acquiring, practising and cementing a suite of skills and understandings that will unlock reading i.e. how to work out words rather than trying to remember them all, remembering whole words. That is neither efficient or possible.

Know the 42 letter sound code. Use & apply the code. That’s reading! And that’s just the beginning.

Take this approach, adapt it, expand exponentially on it, make it part of your regular phonics practice and enjoy greater success and progression by all.

(check out the Six Bricks Education Shop if you need sets of bricks or other reading related materials)

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‘Learning to Read With Six Bricks’ - Part 2

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‘Learning to Read With Six Bricks’ - Part 2

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Hi all, this is Part 2 in ‘Learning to Read With Six Bricks’. I can see it is a topic of interest to many.

As you know, here in Ireland 91% of schools use the world-renowned Jolly Phonics Programme with our bricks. It is impossible for each child to have 42 letter sounds on the table across the day, but all can certainly have 6 bricks at all times. I recommend using those Six Bricks at various times across the school day for short snappy revision and reinforcement sessions on phonics. It will drive knowledge and acquistion of the letter / sound code on which independent reading skills are based. I follow the ‘little and often principle’!

There are 42 sounds in the Jolly Phonics ‘Reading Code’ and children must be able to recognise and identify each sound on the ear. They learn them one by one following the Jolly Phonics Programme

TOP TIP: make a supersize wall chart of the 42 letter-sound code and assign a brick colour to each letter sound in each of the 7 groups. Number the groups. In this way you can direct children to the particular group you are working on. Place your poster up on the wall in every classroom and support room where children are learning to read.

PROCEDURE:

I say to the children, look at group 2, what sound is this – “/r/ as in rat” and they should hold up an ORANGE brick. Which sound is this – “/d/ as in dog” and they should hold up GREEN etc.

You can say the sound discretely or add a word that begins with the sound.

Look at row 3: “/f/ as in five fat fish.” What colour should the children be holding up?

The brick poster is a fun, active, participatory way to revise and cement the letter sounds with the children. All children must listen, engage, identify and hold up a coloured brick. You can instantly see, reinforce and correct.

In Part 3 I will look at the essential skill of blending and how Six bricks can be an essential and valuable part of the approach.

It is my view, a classroom using Six Bricks as part of an active / interactive phonics approach is simply a better classroom, a faster progressing classroom, than a room without the Six Bricks mix. Wouldn’t that make a great little piece of research! Any takers?

For greater success and faster, more effective whole class progression in phonics, incorporate Six Bricks into your approach.

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Learning to Read with Six Bricks - Part 3

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Learning to Read with Six Bricks - Part 3

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This is the Part 3 – two related items posted recently.

Wherever in the world English reading skills are being taught, we can effectively use Six Bricks as part of the mix of approaches to teach blending, the core skill at the heart of learning to read. In this case we have SET 1 sounds represented by bricks in the side on position and SET 2 sounds in the face on position. The ‘s’ is a side-on Green, while ‘d’ is a face on GREEN.

Aim: children work out unknown words through sounding out & blending.

Requirements: a large chart on the wall that the class can see and 2 X sets of bricks per pair.

Procedure:

Say a sound and the children have to hold up the corresponding colour brick in the SIDE on or FACE on position e.g. /r/ is orange face on, while /t/ is orange side on. Repeat for lots of sounds. Very engaging, active and great revision and embedding of sounds. Building speed and automaticity.

Make a word with your brick arrangement or hold up a picture of a ‘brick word’ and the children have to say the word. They will only be able to say it or work it out by applying blending skills e.g. what is the word at ‘1’ below?

Make and test them on other two, three and four letter words e.g. what are words 2 and 3 below?

Pre-prepare lots of brick words on large flashcards that you can hold up or stored on the Interactive Whiteboard for projection.

You can even make a sentence e.g. what is the sentence at number 4 below?

Note: are you beginning to see the massive application of Six Bricks as an approach and strategy to building letter / sound code knowledge and the skills of blending in order to work out unknown words?

Using Six Bricks to harness the attention, active participation and the engagement of all is simply a better, more effective approach.

(check out the Six Bricks Education Shop for brick packs and other phonics / reading materials)

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Learning to Read with Six Bricks- Part 4

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Learning to Read with Six Bricks- Part 4

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In this instalment we focus on vowel sounds. Children need reams of practice in order to discriminate and distinguish them. Sat them for yourself right now.

Ok everyone – pretend you are students in my reading / phonics class and we are practicing hearing, discriminating, recognising and identifying vowel sounds.

Up on my wall, I have a very large poster and the letters and matching colours are viewable and discernible from any seat in the classroom, that’s how your posters should be.

When I say a sound, you must hold up the brick colour that you think matches that sound e.g. if I say /i/ then you should be holding up an ORANGE brick.

Say the vowels as discrete sounds

/u/

/a/

/o/

/i/

/e/

Say the vowels as discrete sounds and add sample words

/u/ as in cup, pup, nut

/a/ as in rat, ran, pat

/o/ as in not, pod, cob

/i/ as in sit, pip, bib

/e/ as in net, pet, peg

What is the middle sound in each of these words

mat, map, can

leg, let, fed

pip, lip, tip

mud, cup, mug

cog, dog, fog

Using the bricks and the chart on the wall, you can do reams of regular practice around the five vowels, building and refining childrens’ ability to discriminate and identify them rapidly.

Short, diverse and rapid active phonics sessions, for 5 minutes here and there drives strong acquisition of and facility with all parts of the letter sound code.

Make Six Bricks a key part of your phonics approach.

(check out the Six Bricks Education Shop for any bricks or supporting materials you may need)

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This is one of the most powerful of Six Bricks activities. Understanding how Six Bricks Answer Code works will open up a whole new way of using Six Bricks in teaching, learning and assessment.

It’s the classic example of ‘TEACH ME TO FISH’ and you feed me for a lifetime. Let me teach you to fish, using just 3 examples and then I ask you to contribute your own example in a reply that demonstrates to me that you now know how to fish!

I am going to provide three examples and once you understand the mechanics of the exemplar activities, you will use this technique daily in curriculum with Six Bricks. There's no end to the possibilities with SBAC application. SBAC drives learning deeper, raises standards.

VERY IMPORTANT: before going further, get your own set of Six Bricks and answer the question just like a child, and compare your own answer to my answer which is contained in the image.

Requirements:

Six Bricks with magnetic tape on their backs OR a set of Cut Out Six Bricks +magnetic tape from Six Bricks Education.

Your front-of-classroom large drywipe magnetic whiteboard

A set of Six Bricks for each student / participant

Procedure:

Write a question on the classroom whiteboard

Next, write up the six items i.e. numbers, words, pictures, statements etc. as required by the question.

Finally, randomly assign one of the magnetised cut out bricks or regular magnetised Duplo bricks to each of the words / numbers.

TASK 1: Students, from left to right on your desks, place your bricks in the brick order that these days of the week follow on from Sunday.

They must now sequence their 6 bricks from left to right, in the order that answers the question correctly.

(when they are ready, you place a colour sequence of bricks underneath the question that answers it. Children compare, discuss and correct own answers)

TASK 2: NO PEEKING AT ANSWER – look at Task 2 in the image: can you place the words in the order in which they would appear in the dictionary? To answer: sequence your bricks in a colour order from left to right to answer the question.

TASK 3: NO PEEKING AT ANSWER – look at the question: can you put the numbers in order from smallest to largest? To answer: sequence your bricks in a colour order from left to right to answer the question.

NOTE: Six Bricks Activity Code can be used daily to drive engagement by ALL students, with ALL SBAC tasks and ALL students must answer the question. No hiding place, and leaving it to the usual few to answer.

Thank you for reading and do give it a go.

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Aim: to develop fundamental movement skills while carrying

These simple activities can be used in P.E. or as brain breaks. Young children begin to develop carrying, balancing and coordination skills e.g. carrying a brick on different body parts (e.g. palm of hand, back of hand, head).

Procedure

In pairs:

Ask the children to stand up in pairs and choose one brick together.

Ask them to balance the brick between their hands and walk around in a circle.

Now try to balance it between your heads and walk in a straight line

Continue the game and try different ways of balancing the brick, using feet, elbows, knees, etc.

Individually:

Stand a brick on the palm of your hand and keep the brick upright for the count of 10

Keep the brick upright in the palm of your hand and walk around the perimeter of the hall or classroom or yard.  Halfway change hands.

Place a brick on your head and walk about freely to the music. Change the music tempo.

Place a brick on the back of each hand and move about freely without dropping.

Extension 1: carrying a Lego brick on a small bat in different positions while moving slowly or quickly.

Extension 2: children move in different ways, at different speeds, in different directions whilst balancing a brick on head, hand palm or a bat.

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Aim: to teach and practice the vocabulary and concepts of position in two languages e.g. English and Gaelic.

Definition: a position is the point where something is located, as on a map, or the posture it's arranged in, such as an "upright position." Position is also relative e.g. red brick in front of green. Position has many meanings but here we practice the language of spatial relationships.

Vocabulary development: top left, bottom right, centred, in front of, to the left of, upright, flipped, on it’s side, above, under, touching, beneath etc.

Procedure:

Take out a set of 6 bricks

Use your right hand to place the red brick on the top left-hand corner of your desk.

Put your right hand behind your back, use their left hands to pick up the yellow brick and place it in the top left-hand corner of your desk.

Put the blue brick in the middle of your desk.

Use both your hands at the same time to pick up the orange and the green bricks, to click the green brick on top of the orange brick, and to place them in the bottom left-hand corner of your desk.

Tips and ideas

The activity can also be used when learning a new language, to practice colours and positioning in the new language.

Extension 1: introduce an object to the table e.g. a pencil case. This opens up further possibilities.

With your left hand place a red brick to the right of the pencil case beneath a yellow brick.

With your right hand place an orange brick to the left of the case and a blue brick between the orange and the case.

Keep the vocab and requests appropriate to age and stage of pupils.

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Building, copying, problem solving and comparing 3D models strengthens childrens' perception of shape and space (spatial awareness skill) which is a key area in mathematics. It’s about looking & seeing, imagining and transposing, and figuring out. They need hands-on practice with materials, not more worksheets!

Let’s call it ‘Tricky Perspectives in 3D Builds’.

Procedure

Build a model where you cannot see how the whole bricks are placed, as in the pictures below.

Make sure each child has the same types of bricks as you used to make the model.

Show the model to the group only from one angle. This means the children have to figure out how the bricks are placed even though they cannot see it from all angles.

After finishing building, let the children look at the model from all angles and then ask them:

Was your model the same? Had you to make changes?

Why was it hard to build this model?

How did you figure out how to build the model?

Tips and ideas:

Since this activity is a bit difficult, start very simple with only a few bricks, and then make it more difficult over time.

You can also let the children to do this activity in pairs or small groups, when one child builds the model and the rest try to copy.

Extension:

All teachers have phone cameras. Why not build some models of ever increasing difficulty, photograph them, save into a folder on your computer and then project them onto the Interactive Whiteboard as building tasks for the students in pairs. You’ll get great milage out of them over time.

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Aim:
to talk about and measure temperature

to talk about time and time sequences

to equate each of the Six Bricks to degrees of temperature and time events

Procedure

Discuss degrees of temperature.

Separate the Six Bricks into two piles – 3 in warm pile and 3 in cold pile.

Temperature: in what sequence would you arrange your Six Bricks to reflect coldest to warmest?

Day & Night: If you arrange your Six Bricks into a sequence to reflect a 24 hour day period in June in the Northern hemisphere, what interval time period of the day is approximately represented by each brick colour?

The Months: discuss which two-month period could be assigned to each brick colour. Now arrange the year according to brick colours and label the bi-monthly bricks.

The Seasons: equate the brick colours to the seasons. Draw and colour in hues of bricks, the cyclical changing seasons.

Task 1: draw a summer picture and colour in warm colours. Draw a winter picture and colour in cold colours.

Task 2: combine sets of bricks together. Construct a warm creature from the warm colours, a cold creature from the cold colours. Use other materials to embellish. Give each a name. Give each a special power. What happens when they meet?

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Children love poems and rhymes. Six Bricks can be used to inspire a poetry appreciation and writing session. Here, we began by reading a number of young childrens’ rhymes and poems. We talked about themes, rhymes and common features. We dreamed of possible illustrations and then looked at what the illustrator drew. There were all sorts of whimsical topics, themes and characters. Our task was to write and illustrate a rhyme that featured one or all of our Six Bricks. Just like in the rhyme ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’, the bricks become animate in the childrens’ imaginations.

Here I share one rhyme written about a little yellow Lego brick.

Little Yellow Brick

A little yellow brick went out one day,

Over the meadow, far far away.

Met a daffodil, I say how do you do?

You and me, we now make two.

Off they went beneath a sky so blue,

Hand in hand, shoe by shoe.

Met a little chick and what did they agree,

Two plus one, we always make three.

Three new friends went skipping along,

Met a yellow hammer singing her song.

She sang and sang, and sang some more,

Yep, three pus one, sure, that makes four

The sun it rose and cheered up the sky,

While four yellow friends slept, bye and bye.

©sixbrickseducation.com

Aims:

We are learning to compose and write a little rhyme that features one or more Six Bricks

We are learning about rhyming words

We are learning to illustrate like a professional illustrator

Procedure:

Sing, say, read and recap a bunch of rhymes and nursery rhymes

Compose a whole class rhyme

In groups of three, have the children toss about ideas, rough draft, compose and polish their rhymes.

Read, perform and share their group compositions.

Another Six Bricks inspired literacy lesson

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Background:

Patterns are all around us: in nature, in our clothes, in wall paper, in our routines, in time etc. Patterns are about seeing connections and making links. We must help our students to do both. By exploring and understanding patterns, children learn to make predictions, to work out and understand what comes next, they come to make logical connections and to use reasoning skills, for example, they come to know the pattern of the morning routine: out of bed, dress, have breakfast, wash teeth, put on coat, grab school bag and leave for school. Patterns lead to prediction and predictable behaviour. There are patterns in time: the days of the week, months of the year, night follows day, spring follows winter, Wednesday always precedes Thursday etc.  Really, pattern is about seeing connections and making links.  It is the systematic arrangement of numbers or shapes which follow a given rule.

Question:
What is the error in the pattern above?
Which brick comes next?

When children understand what makes a pattern, how to copy patterns and how to make their own, this not only enhances their understanding of maths in other areas but also their experiences of art, music and physical movement.

For our young children, identifying and creating patterns is just the beginning of the mastery of life-long mathematical skills. Once children are aware of patterns they will begin to see them in everything.

Aim: to practice building patterns using sets of Six Bricks.

Procedure:

Gather the children in a circle on the floor

Talk about patterns in the world around us.

Use bricks to build a pattern using 8 bricks. Can the children extend the pattern. Do 5 different ones.

In groups, have children make a pattern. Then swop with your neighbouring group and they try to identify and extend your pattern.

Using crayon & paper, draw and record your pattern.

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Collections of objects can be sorted according to many criteria. One such criterion can be on the basis of colour. Being able to identify a common characteristic between a group of objects or materials is a fundamental skill.

We can sort collections on the basis of things that roll or not roll, things that are hot or cold, things that are alive or were never alive, hard things versus soft things, things that are magnetic or non-magnetic etc.

Aim: to sort a collection according to one attribute such as colour.

Procedure:

Children work in groups of 4 - 6 and place their sets of six bricks randomly in the middle of the play area.

Teacher calls out one colour.  The children must sort the bricks by collecting the bricks of that colour. How many?

Repeat this activity but call out 2 / 3 / 4 colours.  Children work in their groups to sort the bricks according to colour.

Extension 1: have various quantities of each colour in the box e.g. 1 light blue, 2 yellows, 3 greens, 4 oranges, 5 reds, 6 dark blues. Sort the collection according to colour and then arrange / order the piles from smallest to largest collection. Once sorted, ask them questions:

How many reds?

Which group is the largest?

How many more dark blue bricks are there than orange bricks?

·Which 2 colours could you combine to have the same number as the reds? (more than one correct answer)

Extension 2: repeat the activity, with the emphasis on second language learning i.e. learning colours in Irish or French or Welsh etc.

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Subitising is the ability to perceive the number of a group of items at a glance and without pausing and counting.  Subitising is the mathematical ability to ‘see’ a small amount of objects and to instantly know ‘how many’ without counting. It is generally agreed that the maximum number of items that can be subitised is about six.

Again, subitising can be practiced with all sorts of materials, but six bricks is certainly one great starting point.

Aim: to accurately say the number of objects in a set without counting.

Procedure:

Children work in pairs or in groups of 3

Have 10 bricks in a tub on the table

Child A reaches into the tub, picks up a number of bricks from 1 to 6 in both hands and then drops them out into the centre of the table.

The other 2 children have to say the number without counting

First to say it accurately or most accurately wins.

Count to confirm the number.

Rotate the roles: thrower & estimators.

Extension 1: Child A drops the bricks and the other 2 children immediately write their answer on a drywipe marker board and hold it up. First up wins.

Extension 2: best of 5 goes is winner. Child A drops out lots of 1 to 6 for 5 goes and the others write the number. Check and confirm each time.

(Tip on keeping score: if you have lots of spare bricks, then give a brick to the winner each time. First to accumulate 6 bricks wins)

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This is a really fun Six Bricks game that is both fast and furious.

Aim: to practice, improve and strengthen the fine motor skills that help with pencil grip, coordination and handwriting. (or just for a brain break, a bit of time out and a little fun!)

Task: How many bricks can you place into a tub using just a clothes peg, before the rocket explodes?

This super exploding rocket is available to access for FREE on the toolkit4maths.com site, in the ‘Classroom Timer’ section. It is wonderful to put it up on the IWB and turn up the volume. (can also be accessed and used on tablet devices at their tables).

Form the students into pairs, max of three.

Give each group 12 to 18 bricks and a clothes peg

Set the timer at 30 seconds. On your count – Ready / Set / Go – hit the START button.

Students, as fast as they can, lift bricks into their tub using the clothes peg and their dominant hand.

When the Rocket explodes with a great bang, they must stop & drop the peg immediately.

Count how many bricks are in the tub. Who got more than 10? Who got the most in.

Reset the timer, and the next person takes a turn.

Extension: use the less dominant hand to do the activity.

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Here at Six Bricks Education, we are firm believers in the  ‘less is more’ principle when it comes to problem solving in mathematics, pardon the contradiction! Providing the time, space and manipulatives for students to explore and solve a couple of problems is far more productive for learning than doing 30 problems by rote & pencil. As I say:

As we like to say: “Worksheets don’t grow dendrites, but Six Bricks most certainly do!”

Using 6 six bricks or even 12 six bricks (another seeming contradiction!), children use the bricks to make their thinking more visible and to provide a platform for mathematical conversations as they set out, manipulate and solve the problem.

Aim: to explore, build, and record how many 8s make 40.

Procedure:

Assign and agree a brick value, for this problem, let it be 8.

We now need to find how many of these  8s make 40.

Children set out the bricks 1 by 1, counting in 8s to 40.

They will discover that 5 eights make 40, transcribed into the equation 5 X 8 = 40 and perhaps recorded as in the illustration above.

Extension: you can pose any number of multiplication problems in the format of - How many ____ make _____? e.g. how may 8s make 48 etc.

Once children have a strong understanding of a concept in one context, they can generalise and transfer that conceptual understanding to all instances of _____ X ______ = Y

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Six Bricks can bring a hands-on approach to problem solving. The bricks can help children to visualise the problem and to work through the steps to arrive logically at a solution.

Aim: to use concrete materials to build out a problem and its solution.

Procedure:

Children work in groups of 2 / 3 / 4 depending on the number experience range you are using.

Teacher reads out a problem e.g. Michael has 6 sweets.  How many more does he need to have 12?

Children listen and then discuss with their group what the equation will be.

Group decides on equation of either 12 – 6 = ?   or   6 + ? = 12

Children use their bricks as concrete apparatus to construct, visualise, talk through and work out the answer.

Each group shares their answer and how it was arrived at.

Various problem-solving activities can be practised daily using this Six Bricks CPA approach.

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Did such a concept even exist before the inception of Six Bricks? Is there no end to the exponential potential of these Six Lego Duplo Bricks! Thinking and innovating Six Bricks is like being trapped in a virtuous cycle, every new activity suggests a further two.

Take this for example: a previous activity involved separating the six bricks into warm and cold colours. All agree that the warm bricks are the red, orange and yellow; while the cold trio are comprised of the dark blue, light blue and green. Once children are agreed on the division of colours, all sorts of mental problem solving can be engaged.

In the following, we assign fractional values to the bricks, but this could just as easily be whole numbers, decimals, money values etc. Adapt the idea to the age and stage of your own students.

Aim: practice mental arithmetic - adding and subtracting halves and quarters.

Procedure:

Gather all students into a circle on the floor and you the teacher enter the ring as ring-master. Add energy and panache to the throwing down of bricks and the flair filled questioning!

Let the hot colour bricks each have the value of ¼, the cold colour bricks the value of 1/2 . Then ask questions.

1.    What is the value of the hot bricks?

2.    What is the value of the cold bricks?

3.    Throw 4 random bricks onto the table. What is the total value of the bricks?

4.    Throw 6 random bricks onto the table. What is the total value of the bricks? Now remove 2 bricks, what is the new total?

5.    Throw 5 bricks onto the table. Then move 1 brick to the side. Ask: what was the value of the pile, before I removed this brick?

Extension: What alternative values could you assign both groups of bricks and what problems could you have them consider, discuss and solve.

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Nothing like a rapid quick-fire round of true or false questions, whatever the age or class level.

True is represented by the GREEN brick and RED signifies FALSE.

If the student thinks the statement is TRUE, hold the GREEN brick up high, if FALSE then hold aloft the RED brick.

For me the teacher, this is a very quick way of determining if the children are correct. It’s a test of knowledge & recall, requires concentration and quick thinking, is active and fun. All centred on just two little Lego brickies!

I like to have the children keep both bricks on the table in parallel, in front of themselves. They focus on the two bricks. I make a statement and they must rapidly decide, True or False, grab and hold aloft the chosen brick response.

This is a snappy way for a teacher to assess knowledge and understanding or to revise & embed content.

Here is a few sample statements that indicate the range and quality of possible statements in an educational setting that you could make; keep them to the age, stage and work ceiling of the class. There are millions of statements possible, actually there is an infinite number, so thinking caps on for your students.

1. True or False: 7+6 equals 12

2. True or False If today is Monday. Two days ago, it was Friday.

3. True or False Glass is magnetic.

4. True or False A bird is higher up the food chain than a cat.

5. True or False Shop comes before ship in the dictionary

6. True or False 7x6 …….+8 = 50

7. True or False Summer comes immediately after Winter

8. True or False Vienna is the capital of Switzerland

9. True or False There are 36 counties in Ireland

10. True or False The Vikings came to Ireland in 1169

Note 1: CRUCIAL – once children have indicated a brick response, ask a follow on clarifying question e.g. in Q1 above: Michael – what does 7+6 equal? Q2 – Mary – what day was it 2 days ago? etc .etc.

Note 2: often when you ask a question of the class, only a fraction of the class engage, less still volunteer an answer and you ask one child for the answer. However, with just a GREEN & RED brick, everyone engages, everyone answers and you see all answers! That’s the 100% I’m looking for in my room!

Extension 1: do a quick round of 10 questions as a fun assessment exercise. Children can keep their scores by marking a ‘tick’ or an ‘x’ on their drywipe marker board.

Extension 2: do a series of true / false statements on a specific subject, topic or topics that are being studied.

Extension 3: do a series of true / false statements to practice vocabulary and verbs as part of second language learning.

Any thoughts, comments, extensions come to mind for this activity?

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This is no ordinary ruler. This is a very colourful Six Bricks ruler and you can even see the GROBBY sequence of Green Red Orange Blue Blue Yellow along the measuring edge.

Of course the units are non-standard, in this case the ruler is ‘six brick units long’.

Aim:

To practice measuring the length, width and height of objects using non-standard units.

To make comparisons between objects based on measurements

Procedure:

Students work in pairs

Give each pair 2 X sets of Six Bricks to make a ‘Six Bricks Ruler’

Provide each pair with measuring tasks e.g.:

Tasks:

How many bricks long is you pencil?

How many bricks long is your maths book?

How many bricks long is your shoe?

How many bricks long is the door?

Measure and record the length of 4 other items with your ‘Six Bricks Ruler’.

Measure and record the width of 2 items with your ‘Six Bricks Ruler’.

Measure and record the height of 3 items with your ‘Six Bricks Ruler’.

Now make 4 comparative statements e.g.:

The __________ is longer than the _________.

The __________ is longer than the _________ but shorter than the _________.

Extension:

In what other ways could you use your ‘Six Bricks Ruler’?

Are there other rulers you could make?

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Aim:

to use Six Bricks to tell the story of 6

to use two hands in the telling of the story.

The story of 6 is just one story to be told. Give each group an extra 4 bricks and sure they could tell the story of 10. For now, stick with the story of 6.

Procedure:

Teacher models and records. Children work their own set of Six Bricks.

Start with a stack of 6 bricks in one hand.

I have 6 in one hand and none in the other, so:

6+0=6

Now take off 1. I have 5 in one hand and 1 in the other, so:

5+1=6

Put the stack back together: Now take off 2. I have 4 in one hand and 2 in the other, so:

4+2=6

Put the stack back together: Now take off 3. I have 3 in one hand and 3 in the other, so:

3+3=6

Putting the stack back together each time emphasises that we always have the full complement of 6. Continue in this vein, recording the story on the large classroom drywipe marker board.

6+0=6

5+1=6

4+2=6

3+3=6

2+4=6

1+5=6

0+6=6

Now let the children repeat the story of 6 on their own and this time they record the facts as they go in their copybooks.

Teaching Point: repeat for other number stories up to 10.