A Second Grade Math Lesson
Introducing Monsieur Fromage and the concept of place value
The 2nd grade math curriculum builds on the 1st grade’s study of the four processes (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) with larger numbers and more abstract concepts, like place value. How does our second grade teacher Ms. Terziev make these concepts fun and memorable?
May we introduce you to Monsier Fromage?
Ms. Terziev’s drawing of Mouse Lane.
Monsieur Fromage is a retired French chef living in Paris after a long career of world-famous cooking. He had to stop cooking in restaurants because he began losing his sight to the point of mixing up salt, sugar, and other ingredients. He is most famous for his dishes that include cheese. He is so fond of cooking with cheese that he grates huge amounts at a time. He is also quite careless and messy as he has always had other people to clean up after him. Now that his sight is so bad, he doesn't notice all the cheese that falls to the floor when he cooks.
Unknown to him, Mr. Fromage moved into an apartment on Mouse Lane. There are three houses on each block and many hundreds of mice live in these houses. They are all the loyal subjects of the Mouse Emperor who lives in the last house on the third block.
The Emperor used to live on a pirate ship and learned from their captain all about keeping track of things, specifically about how to keep count by having a place for everything and putting everything in its place. The mice on Mouse Lane have all been assigned the job of keeping food (and keeping count) for the Emperor. When Mr. Fromage moved into the "ones house," they started adding up and delivering cheese to their leader, who lives in the "hundred millions house."
With this wonderful story to guide their activities, 2nd graders practice working with and solving problems using increasingly large numbers. Mimicking the work of the busy mice of Mouse Lane, children use wooden manipulatives—cubes, sticks, and blocks—to count up and collect cheese for the emperor. The mice smoosh ten pieces of cheese together into sticks and transport them out the chimney and into the next house. Then ten sticks of ten get smooshed together into a brick, reaching higher and higher numbers.
In addition to their activities counting cheese, 2nd graders drew their own versions of Mouse Lane and shared their work with each other during a “museum tour” in the classroom, below.
Ms. Terziev notes that the original version of this story was dreamed up by Kristine Deason (beloved MWS class teacher 2005-2021), and Ms. Terziev adapted it (to wild success!) with this year’s 2nd grade.