Monday, October 18, 2010

Introduction to Combining Problems

Today marks the start of a new unit focused on addition and subtraction concepts.  We'll work with addition and subtraction story problems, not only working to come up with answers to questions, but also to relate appropriate number sentences to different types of situations.  First graders will work primarily with combining and separating stories, while second graders will also work with comparing stories.  In other words, we'll work with stories where I had some and got more and want to know how many I have now and stories where I had some, but lost some and want to know how many I have now.  We'll also work with stories where I had some and got more or lost some and I'm wondering how many more I got or lost and stories where I had some and you had some and I'd like to know how many more one of us has compared to the other.

This is new material for the younger children, but familiar territory for the older children, although it has been a while since they've done this work, so a bit of review is called for.  To keep everyone appropriately challenged, the unit is set up as a spiraling-scaffolded unit, making plenty of use of the "stay or go" format.

Here's how today's math period unfolded:

First, a mini-lesson in which we acted out story problems, solved them with cubes, recorded them on chart paper with pictures, words, and numbers.  I modelled one, we did another together.

Then, those who were ready (i.e. my second grade crew) took worksheets to their table spots to complete independently, while those who needed more instruction (i.e. the first graders) set up worksheets with clipboards in the meeting area so that we could work together. 

As the second graders finished their sheets, they moved on to others laid out along a shelf.  When the first graders working with me finished our sheet, the math period ended.

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