We’re exploring the concept of 1 more with the trusty pipe cleaner and straw activity. It’s looking slightly the worse for wear now and it turns out it is pretty much impossible to fully unbend twisted pipe cleaners, who knew? This is the second station in my set of activities for exploring 1 more. Just like the beads, children pick a number and then put on the correct amount. Then they add 1 more and count again. The key is getting them to talk about what they are doing, taking the concept from the concrete towards the abstract. A strategy I like to use is to show a finished pipe cleaner and ask students to talk with their learning partner to figure about what they are seeing. In this case, I started with 5 yellows and then I put on 1 more. Then I had 6. This is building towards being able to read, write and understand written adding sums.