Math Activities | Early Comparing Corresponder

Early Comparison Corresponder

Sub Trajectory: Comparing

Many-to-One Corresponder: Consciously recognizes that two very small collections have the “same number” by intuitively making a correspondence between the items in each collection. At this level, in certain situations, children may also put objects, words, or actions in one-to-one or many-to-one correspondence or a mixture.

One-to-One Object Corresponder: Puts objects into 1-to-1 correspondence when it is clear the materials are a physical “pair.” In other situations, such as setting the table, may start to do 1-to-1, but then may keep on passing out items until they are all dispersed, or may skip some (due to the lack of clear matching, such as cups “near” plates). The child is sensitive to the relationships of “more than" and "less than” when working with very small numbers (from 1 to 2 years of age). Uses words to include "more," "less," or "same."

Object Corresponder: Puts objects into one-to-one correspondence, although they may not fully understand that this creates equal groups.

Activities

You may see this:

Other Examples:

Many-to-One: Children may put one block in each of some muffin tins but then put a couple blocks in other muffin tins.
One-to-One: A child puts one block in each muffin cup but is bothered that some blocks remain after all cups have been filled. The child may begin to find additional cups to put each block into something.
Object Corresponder: Child puts a straw in each carton (doesn't worry if extra straws are left), but doesn't necessarily know there are the same number of straws and cartons.

Help your student become a(n) Early Comparison Corresponder

Activities encourage children to match sets intuitively, as in putting clothes on each doll, while discussing what they are doing. Children are also encouraged to match sets that are equal in number and make a correspondence obvious ("provoked correspondence") such as plastic eggs into egg cartons (partial or full) or a paint brush in each container. Activities then move to less "provoked" correspondences like laying out "the same number" of pencils and crayons. Using situations that are meaningful and motivating (e.g., parking toy cars in garages for some children who love vehicles) can be helpful.