Create numbers with personality! Design Model Magic® phone numbers, birth dates, and zip codes.

• 1.

  Discuss how people communicate using number, works of art, and words formed with letters. Find examples of how personality can be reflected through shapes, colors, textures, and decorations.

• 2.

  Choose several descriptive words about your personality and interests. Then select a series of numerals that have personal significance, such as a birthday or telephone number.

• 3.

  With Crayola Model Magic, experiment with mixing colors that express those personal characteristics. Knead it a bit before beginning to work. Blend white and colored compound to create tints, or mix colors and black to make shades. Blend two primary colors (red, yellow, blue) together to produce a secondary hue (orange, green, violet). Create a marble effect by incompletely blending different colors.

• 4.

  Consider how shapes can also communicate personality. For example, uneven or rough shapes are different from tidy, geometric shapes. What shape conveys your personal characteristics?

• 5.

  Model the numerals by hand. Or roll out the Model Magic on a sheet of wax paper and cut the numeral shapes out with a craft stick. Add decorative items such as beads, ribbon, or natural materials to add texture and character to the numbers. Embed these in the Model Magic while it is still damp.

Standards

• LA: Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.
• LA: Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
• LA: Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
• LA: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade level topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
• MATH: Write numbers from 0 to 20. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-20 (with 0 representing a count of no objects).
• MATH: Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality.
• VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.

Adaptations

• Possible classroom resources include: Numbers by Max Lucado; One Is a Drummer: A Book of Numbers by Roseanne Thong; The Big Storm: A Very Soggy Counting Book by Nancy Tafuro
• Encourage students to create a set of the first ten digits on the number line, as well as zero. Have students use their Nubby Numerals to answer simple addition and subtraction word problems posed by the teacher or another adult.
• Working in small groups, with the assistance of an adult, students create original word problems that require addition or subtraction in order to find a solution. Students audio-record their original problems and upload these files to a classroom computer. Play the recordings and have members of the class find solutions.