Odd Todd and Even Steven Have Arrived!!!

Last week, I was planning out my coming week of math activities and realized I was going to be teaching the concept of odd and even to my little kiddos.

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I remembered seeing some great ideas from Cara Carroll at the First Grade Parade.

I decided it was a MUST to get the book Even Steven and Odd Todd to introduce the concept and get my kids attention- to Amazon I went.

Even Steven and Odd Todd

I created my own Even Steven and Odd Todd to use as a visual for my kids as I read them the story.

I had my kids sit in a circle on the floor and I placed Odd Todd and Even Steven in the center. Then, I brought out a container of candy corn that we were going to use to show odd and even numbers.

I chose one student to randomly choose a number between 1-30. He chose the number 15. I had him count out 15 candy corn and place them on the napkin in front of him. I asked him if he thought the number was odd or even. He wasn't sure. So I suggested we ask Even Steven and Odd Todd for help. As I was saying this, one of my smartie pants said we could look at the bottom of Odd Todd's shirt to see that if a number has a 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 in the ones place , it HAD to be odd. Ok, my sweet little smartie-PROVE IT! Together, both students counted out the candy corn, one at a time, in Odd Todd's hand. When they were done, I asked them how they knew the number was odd. They explained that in one of Odd Todd's hands was 7 candy corn and the other hand had 8. If the number was even, each hand would have the exact same amount. Nice work, Smarties!!!

Next, I paired up my students and put a handful of candy corn on a plate in between them. They worked together to decide if the amount of candy corn was odd or even on their plates.

After the groups had time to sort and count their candy corn, we wrote the number on the plates. They came up and had to tell me if the number was odd or even and how they knew that was the correct answer.

After this introduction to odd and even, I gave each student a capital E or a capital O. They cut them out and I had them write two and three digit numbers that were either odd or even, depending on the letter they had. They had to underline the number in the ones place to show they understood why the number was odd or even. We added some eyes, thumbs up and legs...TA DAH... Our odd and even buddies are now hanging around our room.