Plan your own double ten-frame talks and lead them in your PLC. The other PLC members will be students. Having a chance to practice leading number talks is one of the most important elements of learning to incorporate number talks into your teaching. Don’t just talk about what you would do - actually try it out!

Plan a Number Talk with a Partner

With a partner, plan a double ten-frame talk with a focus on specific strategies: Doubles, near doubles, or adding 8 plus another number

Create a double ten-frame talk with your partner. You can use a physical ten-frames with blocks or one of the free apps from the Math Learning Center as you conduct your number talk.
Identify your goal for the number talk.
Predict the different strategies that children might use to find the total number of dots. Consider strategies that lead to a right answer and also strategies that lead to a wrong answer.
Practice how you will record these different strategies.

When you are leading the number talk using a double ten frame, follow the routine below:

Prompt	Action
How many dots do you see?	Give thinking time.
What answers do you have?	Record different answers.
How did you see it?	Write student’s name and record strategy using symbols and/or pictures. Take advantage of opportunities to connect the symbols to how the students are picturing the dots. When possible, emphasize benchmark numbers of 5, 10, or 20.
How do you see it differently?	Repeat recording of strategies with other students.
What do you notice about the different strategies?	Make connections among strategies.

Before you conduct your number talk...

Watch the video of these teachers conducting a number talk with peers using a ten-frame. In this video, you will notice that the teachers and "students" stay in character for the entire number talk to make the experience as authentic as possible. You will also notice that the teachers are doing their number talks with only one "student" at a time. To get an even more authentic experience, we encourage you to carry out your number talks with multiple peers, rather than just one.

As you watch, keep track of:

How they record student thinking.
What questions they ask.
How they stay "in character" for the entire number talk.

Practice a number talk

Reading about number talks is not enough! We found that simply reading about and discussing number talks is not enough to learn to conduct them in your classroom. We have found that teachers learn the most when they have the opportunity to practice the number talks with one another.

Each pair should perform their 3-4 minute number talk. The other members of the PLC will act as students.

An important goal of a number talk is for students to compose and decompose numbers in flexible ways. The recording process using symbols is important in this process. The connections the teacher explicitly makes between the dots and symbols when recording students’ strategies during a number talk invite students to apply composing and decomposing skills in more robust ways than dot arrangements. The ten frames provide a structure for students to picture numbers around the benchmarks of 5, 10, and 20. Pay attention to how your students use the ten frame as they determine the number of dots they see.

When you are a student during a number talk:

Use your experience with students to approximate how they would respond. The goal is to work on recording strategies, so don’t focus on student behavior issues.

Stay “in character” for the whole number talk.

Reflect on the number talks

With your PLC, reflect on the experience of leading the number talk
- What went well? What surprised you?
- What did you learn about listening to and recording student ideas?
- Compliment specific teaching strategies used while leading a number talk.