Math
Over the past few weeks we have explored place value in many ways. Students began by playing a game called the Five Tower Game. In this game, students take turns rolling two dice. They create towers out of the sum of the two dice. Once each student has five towers, they then connect all five towers to make one train. The student will create trains of ten snap blocks and write down their answers in tens and ones.
In conjunction with the Five Tower Game, every day students were asked to figure out how many pockets we had in our class. Students placed one snap block in each pocket, then joined them together to create trains. Finally, students connected their trains with those of other students and created trains of tens and ones.
By the second Wednesday, some of the students who had previously not had pockets, made sure to wear jackets or other articles of clothing with pockets.
Another wonderful place value lesson began with Eric Carle's book Draw Me A Star. I read the story and then we discussed different types of stars that we know how to draw. Almost all of the first graders can draw a 5 pointed star. Students estimated how many stars I would be able to draw in one minute. Then, one student timed me drawing as many stars as I could in one minute. We counted my total by tens and compared it with their estimates.
In the next lesson, I first asked students to draw with both hands simultaneously on their whiteboards (a brain gym technique). Then, I timed them drawing as many stars as they could in one minute. Students had to count their stars two ways and report their total number of stars in tens and ones. I then taught them to draw an eight pointed star as shown in the book.
On another day, students were placed in partnerships and took turns timing each other and drawing as many stars as they could in one minute. We discussed one minute and what we could do in one minute. We went down on the field and experimented.
I am including some pictures from some of our other days and activities below. Enjoy!
