How to Teach Whole Numbers

Video Transcript

"So, how do you teach whole numbers? I'm Jimmy, and we're here to discuss exactly how to do that. The more interactive you can be with this, the better off you'll get, because whole numbers as you know, is basically any number whole, from zero, one, two, three, four, and so on and so forth. There's obviously, no negatives, so one thing to do is, have a series of objects, and simply have them count how many there are. In this particular case, in a combination of markers and pens, you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Each number I just counted off, represents that of a whole number. You can bring objects in. If you want to bring food, to distinguish between whole numbers, versus numbers that are not whole, that's also a great idea. Let's just say you bring pies. If you bring five whole pies, none of which are eaten, and you want to have them count off the number of pies, they're going to give you five whole pies. However, if you bring in another pie, that is partially eaten, then that helps them distinguish between the difference of whole numbers, versus non-whole numbers, because if a pie is eaten, it is not a whole number anymore, so that's a couple of suggestions. How do you teach zero? Take all the pies, take all the markers away, and just ask them, how many objects do you see, besides that sheet of paper? There's obviously zero, so those are some suggestions. I'm Jimmy, and I hope you have some ideas now, on how to teach whole numbers."