Math

Written By Guest User

It is so fun seeing students go from kindergarten graduate confusion to being masters of their first grade schedule. This group of students has been harmonious all year. They know their routines now and all of them make their way up to the math cabin and get ready to wash their hands before entering the classroom. I see increased focus and persistence and greater abilities as they have grown older and their brains are ready for more challenges. Each individual is growing in their own unique way; a student like Lyra who has an affinity and is very capable with arithmetic shows growth by completing an activity which is less easy for her, a tangram task card challenge and persisting despite frustration. One of our youngest students, Mickey, demonstrates growth by being able to work on his number scroll without help and by understanding and solving Add a Dot task cards. Each student has a sense of pride in his or her own achievements and all of the individual interests and capabilities spread and inspire other members of the group.

Since my last post, we have talked about place value in an investigation called ‘How Many Pockets’ using unifix cubes to represent tens and ones. We have explored the values and characteristics of pennies, nickels, and dimes and played money games to increase familiarity with these coins and their values. In our wheat grass investigation, students wove ribbons onto plastic baskets and sprouted wheat berries. They watered and measured their wheat grass daily and graphed the growth in centimeters. The first graders also counted the money from the Mayfaire by putting tickets in stacks of tens and then counting by 100s, 10s, and 1s. We explored fractions by creating fraction kits (whole, halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths) and playing games with them, using fraction manipulatives, and making and eating fraction waffles (fifths). We read a book called “Lunch with Cat and Dog” in which a greedy cat always wants the most of every food they are sharing, and dog tricks cat by cutting cat’s half of the food into smaller pieces so cat thinks he is getting more.

We continue to do a sharing circle about once a week in which students give and receive compliments.

Please check out all the pictures below.


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