Clothesline Math has been a growing trend in mathematics education. I saw Andrew Stadel give a talk on it (back in 2015), however it was geared toward middle school and high school math. My mind, never shutting off, was pondering how to make it fit for my elementary teachers. And in my research, there aren’t many elementary clothesline cards out there.
Clotheslines become interactive number lines. Students are able to manipulate cards to show proportional reasoning, precision, equality between numbers, and magnitude. The clothesline builds students’ number sense. It’s a routine that can work from kindergarten through high school.
***Did you know that the number line is mentioned in the Common Core Standards 26 times from 2nd grade through 8th grade?*****
Each set of cards has been designed to have equal cards as well as multiple representations. They are all PDF files.
####Kindergarten number lines co-designed by Stacy Zagurski####
| Number Lines | Suggested Grade Levels | |
|---|---|---|
| 0-5 | TK, K | |
| 0-8 | K | |
| 0-10 | K | |
| 0-10 (2nd set) | K | |
| 3-15 (ten frames & dot images | K, 1 | |
| 0-20 (ten frames & dominoes) | 1st, 2nd | |
| Clothesline Number Path (using Savvy Subitizing Cards) | Designed & created by Mrs. Unsworth | |
| shapes | K | |
| weight | K | |
| 0-50 | 1st, 2nd | |
| 0-100 | 2nd, 3rd | |
| 10-200 (using tens) | 2nd | |
| 2nd (base ten & expanded form) | 2nd | |
| cents-clothesline (money) | 2nd, 5th | |
| Time | 2nd | |
| Oreo fractions | 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th | |
| equivalentfractions | 2nd, 3rd | |
| multiplication-3rd | 3rd, 4th | |
| fractions-3rd (benchmark) | 3rd | |
| fractions-4th (4th) | 4th | |
| decimals | 5th | |
| Fraction Squares | 4th, 5th | |
| integers (6th) | 6th | |
| Percents (6th) | 6th | |
| FDPERC (frac.deci.perc) | 6th | |
Create Your Own
Decimal (Hundreds Grid)
Fraction/Decimal/Percent (Hundreds Grid)
Article on Clothesline June2018CL
Blog posts on the Clotheslines
Kinder – names
Second – cents
Third/Fourth – fractions
Kinder/6th – weight
#ClotheslineMath
Comments
Awesome resources, thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing! I will definitely looking through your resources and use them for our school’s Mathematician St! You’ve made it so easy for me to incorporate it! Yay!!!
No–thank you!
I tried the 0 – 5 clothesline with kindergarten yesterday. Kids were really into it! However, only 1 group did it the way I thought they would (grouping all the 1’s, 2’s etc.) A lot of groups got stuck that there was no 6, so they took a 2 and 4 and put them together to make 6. Should I have been more clear in my instructions, or does it matter that they did this?
Another group thought the 2 tally marks was 11. They did really great problem solving to figure out how far away from 5 to place it.
Jen,
I’m actually impressed that your students did that. They are developing number sense and numeracy. And yes…some of our students saw the 2 tally marks as 11. One of the standards of math practice tells us to have students construct viable arguments–which is exactly what your students did. That’s terrific.
Download the next sets on this page (0-8, 0-10). Keep using the routine. With kinder, we have done the clothesline with weight too. That’s an interesting conversation.
Good for you! And thanks for writing in!
Thanks so much for this resource!!
Hi! In the interest of spreading the joys of clothesline math into the world of 3rd 4th and 5th grade fractions I wanted to share this…enjoy
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1J5YLqKX7w5PmvNbkc3_yi61BVE1hP0N8ipqda8ypP5w/edit?usp=sharing
HI there! Thanks for sharing. More heads are better than one. I love the mix of pictures and numerals.