Lets make a number line

Our math brains continue to grow every day.  As part of our unit on counting to 99, we had to problem solve where numbers might go on a number line.  Sometimes we knew the first or last number and had to fill in the rest and sometimes Mrs. Plaza tried to trick us, but she never can!  Little did we know we were working on our counting skills.

 

 

It took teamwork and problem solving skills for us to find where our numbers would go in our line when we did a whole class number line. 

 



 

Thanks to our great problem solving skills, everyone found their spot in line (even when Mrs. Plaza "forgot" some of the cards). 

 

Please continue to practice counting forwards and backwards to 99 with your child.  We will work our way up to 120 by the end of the year! 

Problem Solving

The kids have been doing a great job at problem solving!  At this point in the year, the focus is on understanding the problem and the ability to pick a strategy and try it.  Later in the year we will work on writing number sentences to match the story problems.
 I used circles to prove how I got my answer, but your child may chose a way that works for them.  Some children like to put the circles in a ten frame to visually see the numbers and other like to use a number line to show their thinking.  The use of any of these strategies is fine as long as your child is understanding what the problem is asking.  If your child is confused using a ten frame or number line encourage them to try using circles to illustrate what the problem is asking.

The most challenging problems are the put together and take apart problems.  These problems involve decomposing numbers instead of adding more or taking some away.

Three red apples and two green apples are on

the table. How many apples are on the table?

 

 

In the problem above, your needs to understand that they are putting the pieces together to get a total number.


Another problem type involves your child decomposing a number into two parts, where you know one of the parts:

Five apples are on the table. Three are red and

the rest are green. How many apples are

 

green?

 

In order to solve the problem above, your child needs to draw the total and then understand that they are splitting the total apart.  One common misconception is that children draw the 5 apples and then draw 3 more.  If this happens, ask your child if you are adding more apples to the table?  Most of the time, once they stop and think about it they realize they are not adding more, but instead of splitting the apples into two groups (red and green). 

 

 

 

The last put together/take apart problem type is the hardest for adults to understand because we are use to having only 1 correct answer and this problem type has multiple correct answers.

 

 

Grandma has five flowers. How many can she put in

her red vase and how many in her blue vase?

 

 

In this problem type, your child needs to understand how to decompose numbers into two parts.  They can pick any possible way to decompose the total number and will have a correct answer. 

 

I hope this is helpful as we continue problem solving throughout the year. 

 

Ice Cream Graphs

 

On Friday, we had a surprise in math class!  What better way to kick off a graphing lesson then to have a taste test!  We tasted three different kinds of ice cream and each child chose their favorite and wrote it on a post-it note.

 

 

 

Once our data was collected, we discussed as a class if there was a better way to display it so we could easily see what flavor had the most votes. 

 



 

After a few different suggestions (put them into a pattern, sort them into groups...), we realized that if we lined our data up, we were able to see easily which flavor had the most/least votes.

 



 

Everyone was excited to see that we had created our first graph!  We used our data to create a class graph of our favorite ice cream flavors!  We also discovered bar graphs can go either direction and the data doesn't change!

 

After creating our class ice cream graph, we were busy collecting data for another graph!  We counted how many desks and doors (including cabinet doors) were in our room.  We turned our data into a bar graph and discovered there are more doors then desks in our classroom!

 

Our next graphing adventure will involve tally charts and picture graphs!  Keep up the great work mathematicians! 

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! :)

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! :)