How many squares are shaded?

How do you know?

How did you see it?

How could we represent what you saw with numbers and symbols?

2, 3, 4

Attending to and using structure

Composing and decomposing number

Relating part and whole

Thinking in equal groups

Connecting area and multiplicative thinking

Composing and decomposing shapes

After the class has discussed the questions above, you can extend this activity by posing the following questions:

How could you represent your strategy for counting the shaded squares using numbers and symbols?

What other array could you draw that has the same number of squares shaded?

How might you count the squares in your array differently from the array we looked at together?