FEATURED CHALLENGE: OVERVIEW

Piles & Holes

James Tanton Collection- 4 Challenges

You’re at the beach! You are building piles of sand & digging holes. 

What happens when you combine sand piles with other sand piles? Piles with holes? Holes with holes? In this set of four Challenges, we’ll find out. Bring 1 or all 4 in your class. (This Challenge is perfect for introducing the number system to your students & remediating those who need extra support.)


Grade 6  |  The Number System  |  Time: 30-50 mins/ challenge  |  4 Challenges
Common Core State Standards: 6.NS.C.5, 6.NS.C.6  For other curriculum click here  

 

CHALLENGE 1:

Digging

In Digging, you’ll use piles & holes of sand to identify with the idea that positive and negative numbers, and zero, can be added.

CHALLENGE 2:

Raining Opposites

In Raining Opposites, we build on a strong conceptual understanding of what opposites are.

illustrations for challenges - squarespace_piles 3.png

CHALLENGE 3:

Collecting & Sorting

In Collecting & Sorting, we learn how to use parentheses to communicate clearly when working with collections of piles & holes.

illustrations for challenges - squarespace_piles 4.png

CHALLENGE 4:

Evaluating

In Evaluating, we practice addition & subtraction of parentheses, collections of piles & holes in different ways!

 
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Piles & Holes with James Tanton

We're proud to partner with James Tanton in bringing to life a series of four wonderfully delightful learning Challenges based on the Piles & Holes puzzles, a sequel to the famous Exploding Dots. The Piles & Holes Challenges are aligned to middle school standards.

 
 
 

Apply math concepts in real-world scenarios. 
Build critical thinking and reasoning skills. 
Check out some of our other featured Challenges: