The Insect Files: THE BUTTERFLY EDITION aka Friends of 20 addition

With this ‘Friends of 20’ activity your students will be required to perform mental arithmetic to determine three numbers that add up to twenty.

Students are working with counting on strategies, even when working with three cards. They count on to add the first two numbers together and then count on again to twenty. Some students may be able to connect with their Friends of 10 knowledge to assist with their mental computation, for example:

3 and 8 .. means ... 8 and 2 makes 10 plus 1 ... then ...

11 and 9 counting on makes 20

The activity has six game options – three to play with a group, and three for students to play independently. Lots of scope for differentiation. You could use these activities as part of a week-long topic on addition where students are asked to compare, order and make collections to 20. Play a different game each day.

Get the activity on my Designed By Teachers store.

Ways to differentiate

• Use concrete materials such as counters and number lines to aid counting on and finding numbers that are Friends of 20.

Noticed the interesting facts on the bottom of each card about butterflies?
Keeping with the theme, why not make butterfly counters from bottle tops.
Recycling in action! This one was decorated with nail polish.

• Use a pack of number cards with numerals 1 to 20 rather than a deck of playing cards to expand the task to include addition with some two-digit numbers.

Card packs are usually available in book stores.

• Introduce the term “plus” by using an addition dice.

You could also use a write-on wipe-off whiteboard dice.

• Students can begin to record the number sentences of Friends of 20 by including mathematical symbols.

Use the operation cards at the back of the Friends of 20 resource.

That leaves just the butterflies …

Project Nature-Ed is about mixing nature with mainstream curriculum and generating conversations about topics beyond straight maths. I had a bunch of ideas on a previous blog for my Friends of 10 activity that showed some ways you can connect maths with the natural world outside of the classroom. Take a look.

In the meantime …

• Working on insects or lifecycles? A perfect time to do this maths activity.
• Studying the seasons, or just want to talk about changes in the weather, particularly if doing this topic close to winter? An ideal time for butterflies in maths. Comparing the daily and seasonal weather patterns of places is a content descriptor in the Australian Curriculum within Geography (ACHGK006). Keep reading for more information on this.

The Monarch (or Wandering) Butterfly.
Great pictures to use here.

One of the butterflies mentioned on the game cards is the Monarch Butterfly. They migrate up to 4,000 km each year, which may explain how they arrived in Australia in 1871. They don’t like the cold, so as winter approaches, Monarch Butterflies fly off to warmer places. A huge feat for a tiny butterfly! Great talking point for a class discussion. 

How to do this

Show where the Monarch’s live on map and ask your students to think about why they might not like the cold, and where they might go for warmer conditions, emphasising the need for the ecosystems that the Monarch’s depend on for their well-being and survival (Systems OI.2 from the Sustainability statements of the Australian Curriculum). 

This map isn't really detailed on the migration, but enough to show seasonal changes for Monarch Butterflies. I just used the information from the links below to plot the route - not very scientific, but adequate for Year 1/2. The red circles show the states in which the butterfly lives, the yellow lines plot their estimated migration routes and the "X" where they over-winter (south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales).

You can get some great info about Monarch Butterflies from the Australian Museum including where they live and their movements in winter.

Migration Mysteries is helpful as it recounts the migration of the Monarch Butterfly. You could read this to the class and plot on a map of Australia displayed on an interactive whiteboard.

In eastern Australia, one annual migration takes Monarch Butterflies from breeding grounds in south-eastern Victoria up the east coast, passing through the southern highlands south-west of Sydney, where numbers of roosting trees occur, they mate and lay eggs on the way. They continue on, eventually reaching over-wintering trees in the Brisbane and south-east Queensland. 

Geography too …

One of the key inquiry questions in Geography within the Australian Curriculum is different features of places and suggests using maps to develop geographical knowledge. 

By creating the above labelled map students can:

• investigate the weather and seasons of places - the place being where the Monarch Butterflies lives and where they migrate to (ACHGK006). 
• develop their geographical, evaluating and representing skills by representing data and location information (ACHGS009)

For reading this blog, get your FREE bonus activity by clicking here. Addition problems have been included to reinforce the learning outcomes of the Friends of 20 activity so you could use the quiz as an assessment of the ability of your students to make Friends of 20.