NC Standard Course of Study · Kindergarten Mathematics
Your list, sorted into six categories, mapped to the standards, and turned into eleven ways a five-year-old can actually touch a Promethean panel.
A Promethean panel is not a big tablet. It is a vertical surface, used standing, by several children at once, watched by twenty more from across the room. Four things follow, and they constrain every tool below.
Everything you named maps cleanly onto the 2017 standards, with two exceptions worth knowing before anyone builds a coverage report around it.
| What you said | Standard | The actual wording |
|---|---|---|
| Count to 100 by 1 and 10 | NC.K.CC.1 | Count to 100 by ones and by tens |
| Count forward from any number | NC.K.CC.2 | Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence, instead of having to begin at 1 |
| Number formation, writing numbers | NC.K.CC.3 | Write numbers 0–20; represent a number of objects with a written numeral, 0 representing a count of no objects |
| One-to-one correspondence | NC.K.CC.4 | Pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object |
| Counting and cardinality — how many in a set | NC.K.CC.4 | The last number named tells the number of objects counted regardless of their arrangement |
| Subitize | NC.K.CC.4 & NC.K.OA.5 | State the number in a group of up to 5 without counting (perceptual); recognise and combine groups with totals up to 5 (conceptual) |
| “One more” | NC.K.CC.5 | Name the next successive number when an object is added, recognising the quantity is one more |
| Greater, less, equal to | NC.K.CC.6 & .7 | Compare groups within 10 by matching and counting; compare two written numerals within 10 |
| Ways to represent a number | NC.K.OA.1 | Objects, fingers, mental images, drawings, sounds, acting out, verbal explanations, expressions — and make connections among representations |
| Part-part-whole, number bonds | NC.K.OA.3 | Decompose numbers up to 10 into pairs in more than one way, recording each decomposition |
| Number partners of 10 | NC.K.OA.4 | For any number 0 to 10, find the number that makes 10 when added to it |
| Regrouping teen numbers | NC.K.NBT.1 | Compose and decompose 11–19 into ten ones and some further ones |
| Fine motor — lines and curves | Not a math standard | It is readiness. The nearest standard it serves is handwriting, RF.K.2, over in ELA |
| Patterns | Not in NC K math | Patterning is a readiness skill here, not a kindergarten standard. Worth teaching, not worth reporting |
The one that is easy to miss: NC.K.OA.1 does not only ask for many representations. It asks the child to make connections among them — to know that the domino, the tally, the ten frame and the numeral are the same thing wearing different clothes. That is a different task from producing each one, and it is the one a board does better than paper, because you can put all five on the glass at once.
Rote sequence, counting on from anywhere, one-to-one, and the moment cardinality lands — that the last word said is the answer, not just the last word.
Tools: Hundred chart that lights as the class chants · tap-to-count sets · number line hops from a given startSubitising, both kinds: knowing four dots are four at a glance, and seeing six as a group of four and a group of two. The skill that stops a child counting from one forever.
Tools: Flash-and-hide dot patterns · combine-two-groups · pattern strips with a gap to fillThe same number as a domino, a tally, a drawn set, a ten frame, a word and a numeral — and the connection between them, which is the actual standard.
Tools: Build-the-number mat with six empty slots · sort mixed representations into number bins · match-the-pairsPart-part-whole, number bonds, partners of ten, and teen numbers as a full ten plus some ones. One mental move underneath all four: a number is made of other numbers.
Tools: Pull-apart number bond · double ten frame for teens · partners-of-ten machineOne more, one less, and greater than, less than, equal to — both by matching objects and by reading two numerals.
Tools: Matching bridge between two sets · one-more conveyor · numeral comparison with no objects to fall back onMaking the numeral, with the quantity attached so it never becomes pure handwriting. The lines-and-curves work lives here too.
Tools: Numeral tracing with start point and direction · line and curve paths · write-then-check against a setEvery tool above is one of these interaction patterns pointed at different content. Build the patterns once and the suite is mostly configuration.
| Pattern | What the child does | Why it teaches |
|---|---|---|
| Tap-to-count | Touches each object once; it changes and stays changed | One-to-one is enforced by the design — a counted object cannot be counted twice, so the error is impossible rather than corrected |
| Drag-to-frame | Pulls counters into a ten frame or a set ring | Snap zones make placement forgiving; the frame does the structuring |
| Pull-apart | Drags a whole into two parts and watches both numbers move | Decomposition as a physical act — the total visibly stays the same |
| Flash-and-hide | Sees a dot pattern for a second, then it is gone | The only way to force subitising instead of counting |
| Trace | Follows a numeral path with a finger, from the right starting point | Formation with direction, not just shape |
| Build-the-number | Fills six empty slots with six representations of one number | The connection task in OA.1, which worksheets almost never ask for |
| Number-line hop | Jumps a marker forward from any starting number | Counting on, rather than restarting at one |
| Matching bridge | Draws lines pairing two sets until one runs out | Greater and less by matching, exactly as CC.6 words it |
| Sort into bins | Throws mixed representations into numbered bins | Fast, forgiving, and works with four children at once |
| Fill the gap | Completes a repeating pattern from a tray | Pattern as prediction rather than decoration |
| Parallel lanes | Two to four children, same task, side by side, at the same time | Not content — a wrapper. This is what the hardware is for |
One engine, many item types. That is the whole architecture, and it is the same shape as the letter-sound tool already running: a shared spine with the activity swapped out.
Board and tablet are different jobs and should not pretend otherwise. At the board you are teaching: whole class, several hands, no meaningful individual record — what you can capture is who came up and what happened, which is a note, not a score. On a tablet beside one child you are assessing, and the record is real. Build the same content for both, but let the board tools write notes and the tablet tools write data. A board tool that claims to have assessed twenty children has assessed nobody.
Anything timed for a whole class. The slowest child at the board is being watched by nineteen others. Flash-and-hide is a controlled exception because the limit is on the stimulus, not on the child's answer.
Drag targets smaller than a palm. A five-year-old at arm's length on glass has perhaps an inch of accuracy. Snap, or do not drag.
Scores on the glass. Twenty children can read who got it wrong. Keep judgement on the teacher's device.
Sound as the only signal. A classroom at ten in the morning is loud, and the panel speakers face a wall of children.
Standard codes and wording from the North Carolina Standard Course of Study K–8 Mathematics, adopted June 2017, implemented 2018–19. Third in a set with Mapping the Alphabet Code and The Kindergarten Playbook.