Even and Odd

Even and Odd... a pesky concept...

It's so abstract that I really like to ground it in a meaningful context.  For the past few days we've begun to do some serious partner work around here-- playing the math card games War and Double War , reading with partners, talking to our "circle partners" during read-alouds, etc.  Pairing up students is a natural way to consider the concepts of even and odd.  If there are an even number of students, everyone will have a partner.  If there are an odd number of students, someone will be leftover and need to join a pair, making a group of three.  Today we began to work with this concept, but we can come back to it regularly during our morning attendance routine. 

Here is the open-ended problem-solving bit of work that I asked the class to work on today:


"There are an odd number of children in Mr. Brown's class.  How many children might there be in the class?"

Most of the younger children found an answer by drawing pairs of people and then counting them up.  Those who were a little more advanced found multiple answers.  Many of the older children simply gave me a list of odd numbers. 

A few students went on to more complex questions like:  "Mr. Brown's class has an odd number of children.  Ms. Green's class has an even number of children.  When the two classes get together, will there be an odd number or an even number of children?  Show your thinking in pictures, numbers, and words."