Learning how to Make a Ten

One of the most important skills we are learning in math is how to "make a ten" to help us add.  This skill will help your child throughout the years as they tackle harder math concepts. 

We have been working on this in first grade by using manipulatives to help up visualize what is happening.  The first step is to show both numbers from your equations on a ten frame.  Your child has been working on how to draw 10 frames, please encourage them to use this tool if they are having trouble with this concept!

Next, you need to think of the friends of 10.  8 and what would make ten?  To visualize this, we moved two counters up to fill in a ten frame. 

 In our equation, we drew two circles under the 7 to show that we are decomposing that number.  We are breaking the 7 into two parts:  What we need to make a ten and whatever is left over.  

We filled in the circle by the 8 with a 2 because we needed 2 more to make a ten.

In first grade, we have been having the children find and circle the friends of ten, and write a ten next to it to remind themselves that we combined the 8 and the 2 to make 10.  

 The next step is to look back at our ten frames and see how much of the 7 is left.  There is 5 left, so we put 5 in the other circle.

The last step is to put it back together.  We now have 1 group of ten and 5 more, so our answer is 15.

As the year goes on, we hope for this to become a mental process for your first grader.  At home, please practice decomposing numbers to help this become more automatic for your child!  Thank you! :)

Reading and Writing Anchor Charts

These are the charts your child has helped create in class.  Please feel free to refer to these charts as your child is reading and writing at home!

 

 

While we focus on picking out just right books, developing a love for books is important and sometimes that means your child might want to read a book that is to hard for him/her at the moment.  Instead of saying "no, you can't read that," we have talked about different ways to read a book where the words might be too difficult.  You can tell a story through the pictures, you can read the words or look for words you know and/or you can retell the story if it was one that you have heard before. 

 

Our word attack strategies!  Look for a copy of this coming home in your child's take home folder soon!  If your child comes to  tricky word while they are reading, please encourage them to try these strategies first before you tell them the word.

 

Writing Anchor Charts: We are working on being brave writers and trying to add more details to our stories and learning different ways to spell words so our readers can read our stories! 

Sight Word Hunt

To start off our word study, we went on a sight word hunt!  We reviewed the words on our word wall and then tried to see how many of them we could find in our books.  Every time we found a sight word, we wrote it down!  After a few minutes of hunting, we shared all the words we were able to find! 

 

 

Decomposing Numbers



We have been working hard on decomposing numbers!  We have learned that decompose means to separate into parts and have enjoyed finding different ways to separate our numbers into parts.  We have discovered that there are more then one way to break apart most of the numbers through 10. 

 

Guess my way was a favorite game during game time!  With a partner we decided on a number.  Partner 1 broke apart the number showed it on their part/part/whole model.  Partner 2 tried to guess the way that their partner made the number.  They would ask is it two and two?  And partner 1 would respond with "Yes! That's my way to make 4," or "That's a way to make 4, but that's not my way." 

 



We also worked with a partner to show some of the different ways to decompose a number, using different models.  Each pair was challenged to come up with a way to decompose a number and show it using a domino, circles and a number sentence. 

 

Look at our finished charts!  We found all the ways to decompose the numbers 6 through 10!

 

 

Friends of 10!  We spent a few days working on a very special number: 10!  Understanding this number is going to be a very important part of 1st grade as we learn to add and subtract larger numbers. 

 

This week, we played 10 Bond GO FISH!  To play you need two sets of number cards 1 through 9.  Each person gets 4 cards, and the rest go in the fish pond.  The goal is find the pairs of number that make 10.  If you do not have a pair that makes 10, you need to ask another player for a card to complete one of your pairs.  If that player doesn't have your requested card, you draw one from the fish pond. 

 

 

Math Journals were an exciting time this week as we learned how to draw ten frames and were challenged to find all the different ways we could show ten if we had some red and yellow chips.  We are still working on making sure our ten frames have 10 squares, but overall I was very impressed with how eager each child was to attempt to draw their own 10 frames and how well most of them turned out! 

 

We will begin putting these concepts together as we learn different addition strategies such as making a ten!  Keep up the great work Mathematicians! :) 

Welcome to First Grade

Hello First Grade families and welcome to our classroom blog!  This blog has been designed to give you a sneak peak into our classroom!  My hope is that this will create a conversation in your family about the things we do in First grade and bring a smile to your face as all of our many accomplishments are posted.
Cheers to a cheerful and vividly illustrated school year!

Mrs. Plaza


Welcome to our room: