Math

Wow! Welcome spring sunshine! It has been so amazing to experience all of the weather with the rainy season and now the sunny, blooming spring. Since I last wrote, the first graders have practiced addition by solving Add a Dot task cards, playing the game Largest Number Wins with a partner, completing their weekly jobs such as charting attendance, and in other opportunities as they arise during class. The attendance job also involves making the connection between addition and subtraction and creating a fact family in which 3 absent students plus 9 students who are present equal 12 students in our class. Many students have been very dedicated to working on their number scrolls and all students are practicing number formation, place value, and sequence by working on their scrolls.

We completed an activity called Stars in 1 Minute which involved reading the book, Draw Me A Star, by Eric Carle. This activity is so multi-faceted because it involves time and the concept of one minute and what we can accomplish in one minute; fine motor skills and drawing different types of stars; counting our stars by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s; place value in terms of the total number of stars drawn; and graphing and sorting everyone’s stars.

We continued graphing activities with a teacher led graphing activity and the students were introduced to the concepts of simple coordinates. The students really enjoyed graphing. Then, we began an exploration called The 4 Triangle Problem, in which partners were asked to create shapes using 4 triangles. Students created triangles, squares, rectangles, trapezoids, parallelograms, pentagons, and hexagons. Together, we sorted and graphed all of their results, they were very proud!

In honor of spring, students wove ribbons around plastic baskets and planted wheat berries in order to grow wheat grass. This activity provided an opportunity for measuring our wheat grass in centimeters and graphing the results.

We had lessons on even and odd numbers and I introduced a set of task cards that explores the concepts of even and odd. We also performed some mental math activities called Young Shape Logic. Most recently, we have been working on the numbers that add up to make 10 through a literary activity based on the book Mouse Count and by playing the card game 10 Go Fish.

Throughout, we have balance and routine, as well as flexibility and trying to provide each student with curriculum that interests and is appropriate.

Thank you and please feel free to reach out to me anytime.