We've been estimating, counting by 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's, and sorting many many ways. Our class has doing this using insects, sea creatures, and frogs. INQUIRE with your child what his/her favorite has been and what they sorted them by. You may wonder what the benefits of sorting are in first grade? Look at the information below from the Bridges program to find out why. Q: What is the value of having students do so much sorting?
A: Young students enjoy sorting the buckets of buttons and plastic bugs and sea creatures in this
unit. They inspect the buttons or creatures closely and arrange them into groups in a variety of
ways, according to different features. Bringing order to a large group of objects in this way
provides many opportunities to create groups of things that can be counted (by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, and
10’s), combined (addition), and compared (subtraction). In addition to providing a context for
counting, adding, and subtracting, sorting is the first step in finding patterns, organizing data,
and solving problems of all kinds.
These pictures are from an activity where students had to work COOPERATIVELY to sort their buttons in a variety of ways. Working together as a cohesive group is not always easy for first graders but students continue to work on improving their ability to talk and share ideas with one another.
We have been using our knowledge of insects to create math story problems. Our class has been looking closely at butterflies, praying mantis, and beetles, noticing various characteristics of each and studying the similarities and differences of their life cycles. INQUIRE with your child what the difference between a butterflies life cycle is compared to that of a praying mantis. To create our math story problems we used insect stamps and came up with a variety of different stories about insects. We used addition and subtraction to solve the problems. It was a challenge for many of our students to show their math thinking as opposed to just giving an answer. INQUIRE with your child what it looks like to "show their math thinking." I hope you enjoy working on solving students math problems in the packet sent home. Have your child show you various ways that they could solve the problem. (This is an optional activity to do at home).
