Age:
8 years old

Aims:
To learn and apply the associative property for addition

Materials:
Coloured pasta, three colours
String for threading the pasta beads

Vocabulary:
The associative property

Introduction:
The teacher gives the pupils three strings for threading the pasta. Each string is for pasta of a different colour. Then the teacher asks each pupil to count the beads (pasta) on each string. The operation for the calculation is then written on the blackboard.

Main part:
The pupils will be given two strings of different length and they will thread the pasta they have, following the following rule: the longest string can hold beads of two different colours. While they are doing the activity, the pupils will observe they have obtained an identical string of one of the three they already have. The teacher asks them to count the beads of the two strings and then calculate the total, writing the addition on the board once again.

Round up:
They will observe that

• one addend is common to the first sum
• one addend is the sum of the other two addends that are associated

They will go on to associate the beads of coloured pasta in different ways.

Observations:
Joining the colours of the beads, the pupils will associate their respective quantities; this will allow them to achieve the aims while playing with the pasta.