Since winter break, first grade students have been working on applying addition and subtraction strategies, improving their fact recall, and understanding place value concepts. In doing so, students have completed a unit in working with numbers to 20, a unit working with numbers to 40, and are now focused on a mini-unit on comparing numbers. Throughout each unit students have been tasked with counting and comparing quantities, adding, and subtracting. As with other topics, students followed the progression of working with concrete objects and pictoral representations before moving onto problem solving. This began by counting and grouping objects, reviewing place value concepts (ones, tens, hundreds, thousands), rounding numbers to the nearest ten or hundred, and comparing quantities (greater than, less than, equal to). Students are actively adding and subtracting using number bonds, counting on, counting back, and making tens. They are applying strategies and using a variety of tools (objects, number lines, hundreds charts, base ten blocks, etc.) to add multiple addends, solve for missing addends, and identify and complete a variety of numerical patterns. Coming up, students will begin multi-digit addition and subtraction without regrouping. Practicing problem solving, students will be asked to select the appropriate operation, work through multiple steps, and show their work.
The photos below depict students playing the “Greater Than Less Than Game.” Working in pairs, player one rolls the dice to build and read a two digit number. Then, player two does the same. Taking turns, players fill in the appropriate greater than, less than, or equal sign. The player with the highest number wins the round, and the player winning the most rounds wins the game. Student’s are looking forward to playing a three digit version of the game tomorrow.