Addition Strategies

      We have been working a lot lately on addition and subtraction facts, understanding their relationship, utilizing addition and subtraction to solve story problems, and using manipulatives and a 100's chart as tools to add and subtract. 

     One of my favorite parts about this time in first grade is that they are taking some of those foundational skills that we have been working on all year long and applying them to more difficult situations.  Some examples include:  Everyone is using our "facts of 10" and applying them to problems that equal 100, such as 3+7=10, therefore, 30+70 must equal 100!  I loved that they so easily made that connection!  They also have been studying all year how to count by 10's from any number on the 100's chart.  They know that you go straight down.  They also know that 34 has 3 groups of 10 in it.  Therefore, to add 34 to any number, you can slide down 3 squares on the 100's chart and over 4 to find your answer.  They also made the connection today that to add problems such as 20+45, you could simply break that into a mental math problem and do 20+40+5 and not use any manipulatives besides your brain!  Love these connections!

   One girl looked at a problem today.  It was 22+34.  She said, I don't even have to work that one out.  I asked why?  She said, "I already did 22+36 over here, so I know the sum will be 2 less because 34 is 2 less than 36.  She is a great thinker!

    Discovering these "alternate" ways of adding and subtracting helps make your child a more flexible thinker in math.  Don't worry, I still show them and require them to learn the traditional algorithm, but they also know many other ways to approach problems.  This will pay off for them in the long run.  Being flexible in your thinking and working with numbers and have a strong sense of the number system will be crucial for success later on in math.  And I have a class this year that LOVES to learn those "tricks"!  They are so fun to teach.  I can't wait for the rest of the year.  With the foundation that we have been building all year, they are ready to fly!

Celebrating MLK Jr.

     We have spent time this week learning about Martin Luther King Jr. and his contributions to society.  In addition to this being a Social Studies topic, we used it as an avenue for learning to research and write about our findings.  We discussed different sources that can be used to research and how to tell if they are recent and reliable.  We talked about what the problem with the Internet can be and how to know if a site is generally a good one.  (people can publish whatever they want)  We watched videos, checked out websites, and read books (both read aloud and a book that they read).  We completed a variety of organizers to record their learning.  It is important when learning about a new topic to process that new information many times and in a variety of ways in order to be sure the students remember it and understand it. 

     One activity that we did to process the information was record information on a has, was, and wanted chart.  We talked about what he had (a dream or vision of a better world), was (a minister, smart, a good speaker, a husband and dad, a good leader), and wanted (laws changed).  After studying with resources that I read to them for a few days the students read a rather challenging book themselves.  They did quite well because they had a lot of background knowledge and are very motivated by this topic.  Before we read we did a 30-second share.  They have a partner.  I set the timer for 30 seconds and they have to keep speaking the entire 30 seconds with no interruptions from their partner about the topic.  Then the partner takes a turn.  I was very impressed that they were able to speak knowledgeably for the full 30 seconds.  We could have easily gone for a minute. 

     As a culminating activity we created a foldable.  I got the idea off of Pinterest.  On the outside there was the image of children holding hands.  On the inside was the report that they wrote about what they had learned.  They turned out excellent.  The student's really showed off their ability to take 1 or 2 word ideas from their graphic organizer and turn them into sentences for a report.  I was very proud of them!

    We also read a variety of picture books set during the Civil Rights Era that really helped the students identify with the people during that time and really helped them understand what life would have been like.  The books Let Them Play, Goin Someplace Special, and The Other Side are three of my very favorite books.  They are great for teaching about characters and talking about how to identify with different characters.

Resolution Writing

     I intended to publish this post right away when we returned and I forgot about it.  Here are a few pictures of our New Year's Resolution projects.  I love having first graders do self-portraits a few times throughout the year.  It's fun to see their artwork progressing as well as see their perception of themselves.  We learned about the word "resolution" and thought of a couple of synonyms to go with it, such as goal.  We also talked about what their goal would look like, what they would have to do to achieve it, and how a goal is not something you are already doing.  I had several kids start out with the goal that they were going to be nice to their teacher.  :)  I love the thought, but none of them are mean to me, so I told them they had to think of something that they weren't already doing.    They turned out great and added a little sparkle to our hallway after the holiday break.

Snowmen at Night

   We have had a wonderful first week back after the holiday break.  We have been having fun in Writing this week learning new words to improve our Word Choice in our writing pieces.   One of the activities that we do in my room is collect words.  We are collecting antonyms right now.  Occasionally, I will choose one of the pairs of antonyms to do some extended work with.  This is a strategy I learned at LETRS training.  We used the words fat and skinny and thought of every word in between to describe fat and skinny.  We also thought of some words to describe "really fat" and "really skinny".   Then we ranked the words in order of degree of fat and skinny.    To follow up on some of our word study we wrote about snowmen.  We had obese snowmen, plump snowman, an emaciated snowman, and many other very descriptive snowmen.  It was fun to read their writing.   This activity was also an extension of the book Snowmen at Night.  They told about what their snowman does at night while they are sleeping.

   Enjoy our display!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday!  I am hoping now that the chaos of the holidays has settled down I will get back to blogging regularly about our classroom.  It wasn't that they students did not have fantastic learning and thinking going on, I just wasn't taking the time to share it! 

Today we worked on an interesting problem and one that really helped my first graders learn to persevere in their problem solving.  I presented the question to them of "When was the last time all four digits in the year were different?"  They discussed how to go about solving that problem and fairly quickly came up with the idea of making a list.  Several mentioned that it would be important not to miss any years so they needed to stay in order.  Here are some pictures of their thinking!

We had to do a lot of talking about how to write the years 2000-2009.  Once they saw the pattern they caught on quickly.  Then, the discussion of what years came before 2000.  They thought that must be in ancient times, so I circled the birth years of my children so they could have some sort of perspective.  I can't imagine what they would think of the year I was born in!  It was a great activity to get them thinking about Math again and a great dinner conversation piece at home. 

What would you take on the Mayflower?

I love using the festive spirit of the holidays to learn.  The students are enthused and usually put forth a lot of effort into their projects.  In this activity, we studied about the Pilgrim's journey on the Mayflower.  Then, we wrote about the one item we would take on the Mayflower if we made the trip.  We were focusing on good Ideas and Organization in our writing.  I looked for a good beginning, ending, and original details.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Odd or Even?

One of the topics that we have been covering in math is the concept of odd and even numbers.  A very important component of teaching math is teaching for a high level of understanding.  Anything that I can take from an abstract idea to a concrete idea for my kids is fantastic.  If they can demonstrate the task for me using objects and explaining their thinking I know they have a good grasp.  Simple memorization of rules does not lead to a high level of understanding.  So, while it may have seemed simpler to simply tell them which numbers are odd, which numbers are even, and then how to apply that knowledge to larger numbers, it is much more effective to allow them to explore and discover the rule for themselves.  They will have a deeper level of understanding and meaning, which in turn will lead to better results.  Yes, it takes longer, but it has been so worth the time!

We started off with one digit numbers and explored how they could be put into partners.  They made a list of the one digit numbers and looked at which ones could be in even partners and which ones could not. 

Then, they progressed to putting two digit numbers in partners.  We discussed how it takes a really long time to get them all in partners so maybe they could do even teams.  They understood that if there were even teams that each person on a team would have one partner from the other team, so it would be the same as having a partner.  I got the idea of using linking cubes to represent the 2-digit numbers rather than B-10 blocks from another blogger I follow at www.mathcoachscorner.blogspot.com.  We began with numbers that had an even number of tens, such as 48.  Then the "tens" would divide evenly with two groups of ten on each team.  If the number was 47, they would have a "one" leftover in the middle with no team to go to.  Therefore, it was odd.  The next step was giving a number such as 58.  There is a "ten" leftover.  They quickly realized that the "ten" could be divided in half to put 5 on each team.  Then, it is an even number.  After several practice session they realized that it doesn't matter what is in the "tens" spot because you can always take the leftover "ten" and divide it in half evenly on each team. 

Eventually, we got to our rule.  Some may argue that it would have been easier to tell them all along to simply look at the number in the ones place and ignore the rest of the number...but, look at the learning and meaning making that would have been lost!  They now have a deeper understanding of WHY you only have to look in the ones column to determine if a larger number is even or odd.