Teaching the Concept of Grouping

Grouping is an essential step in math. It helps students understand multiplication, since multiplication is nothing but repeated addition of similar groups. In this article, some ideas have been presented pertaining to grouping that can be implemented in the classroom.

More or Less: A picture with images of different items can be shown to the students. The students should be asked to identify the picture (Pic1 or Pic2) that has more elements than the other.

Colour papers can be crushed into small bits, and the students can be asked to paste them under the categories of ‘More’ and ‘Less’. More bits should go under ‘More’, and less bits should go under ‘Less’. The teacher can conduct this discussion by holding some pencils in their hand as well. Questions such as “How many pencils are there?” and “Is it more than 20 or less than 20?” can be asked to the students to elicit responses from them. Other objects, such as tamarind seeds, stones, etc. can also be used.

Estimation: For the next activity, the students can be made to sit in pairs. Each student in a particular pair should be given a separate role. One student must draw as many sticks, or any other objects, within a given time limit that the teacher prescribes, and the other student will be required to guess the number of objects that are drawn without counting.

Grouping without reminders: The teacher gives 10 tamarind seeds to the students. The students should be asked to group them in every possible manner with each group containing the same number of seeds so that no seed is left remaining. (All the seeds should be grouped).

Quantity representation of a number: This is a written activity where the students are required to write a number and draw the number of objects corresponding to the number they wrote.

Teacher: Shanmuga Priya. K, (PST) GHS Kodathur