Counting Project

Every September my first grade class does a counting project where we explore counting collections of different things in different ways. We spend several days with kids counting different collections with partners then recording the way they counted. I always love to see how their methods of counting, keeping track, and recording morph and become more efficient over the course of several days as they think up and try out different strategies with their partner. When we begin counting larger collections the kids begin to realize that they need more efficient ways to count and keep track than their original counting by 1 strategy and they start to develop more effective strategies such as grouping and counting by 5s and 10s.

After counting, exploring, discussing, thinking up new ideas, and repeating the process for several days we take on the whole class project of counting all of the unifix cubes in our math area. I always start by telling the class that there are over 1,000 cubes in the bin and we plan out how we could use our grouping strategies to help us count to such a high number. We decided that everyone in our class is good a counting by 10s and 100s so we could use those numbers to help us. The students started by sorting all of the cubes into ziploc bags in groups of 10 (leaving out the few extras that didn't fit into a group). The next day they worked together to create bags of 100 by putting 10 bags of 10 into gallon sized ziploc bags. The kids discovered that they were able to count above 1,000 once we were counting by 100! Once we had the cubes organized into bags of 100 plus the extra 10s and 1s left over we were able to have one of our first place value discussions and learn that we have 1, 769 unifix cubes total!

This is always a great project because it gets kids thinking about efficient ways to count and record their work through exploration with partners. It also gets them thinking about creating a strategy, trying it, modifying it, trying it again, and working toward more efficient strategies. It is one of the ways I like to get the class working on number sense and problem solving early in the school year and the class always loves doing it. Below are photos taken throughout our process (which took place on and off over the course of the last three weeks).

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Class Photos

I always like to get a photo of our class at the beginning of the school year for the kids to look back on at the end of the year. Here they are (a "serious" photo and a "silly photo")!

Apple Project

We have been reviewing tally marks as part of our first math unit in first grade. We have been creating different tally charts to help us practice and our next one will go with an art project we did this afternoon. Each student made a collage apple in either red, green, or yellow, and on Monday we will count up how many of each color were made and then create a tally chart to record the results. These were a lot of fun and will all be hung up for families to see at Open House on October 6! Below are a few photos of kids working on the project today.

Posting Comments to this Blog

At Curriculum Night last week there were some questions about how to post comments to this blog. I checked it out and it seems that the difficulty might be posting comments from certain devices or possibly when selecting an account under the "Comment as:" section. I checked into this and it seems that commenting from a computer or iPad both work well, though I received feedback that commenting from a Kindle Fire did not work.

As a second recommendation (if you had trouble commenting) you may need to try changing the selection in the "Comment as:" box before submitting your comment. You can easily submit a comment when commenting as a anonymous person or typing a name into the box but, if you select "google account," "live journal," "aim," or other choices from the drop down menu, you will be asked to enter a username and password to an account first. If you have been having a hard time commenting so far, please try these two suggestions. They worked for me when I tried them out and the students and I would love to see comments from family members on the blog!

Constitution Day

Yesterday, September 17, was Constitution Day and we had our first whole school assembly to learn about it! At the beginning of the school year we always talk about expectations and rules at school so our annual Constitution Day assembly fits right into this (we discuss how the constitution is like a set of rules for our whole country!). Below are a few photos from the assembly where one of the second grade classes lead us in learning a little bit about what the constitution is. 

 

Hopes and Dreams

Overt the past two weeks our class has spent lots of time talking about our hopes and dreams, or goals, for first grade. We started by reading some wonderful books to get our ideas flowing. First we read The Big Orange Splot, which is a funny story about a man who goes against the grain to follow his dreams and ends up getting his friends to do the same. Next we read The OK Book, which is a wonderful book where the character tells us many things he is "ok" at doing but will get better at with practice. The third is titled Ish, and is one of my favorites because the main character learns that he doesn't have to do everything perfectly and should keep working at the things he loves anyway. He draws a picture of a flower vase that looks "vase-ish," he writes poems that sound "poem-ish," etc. He realizes that practice is great, it's ok not to do everything perfectly, and that "ish" is a pretty good place to start! What a wonderful lesson for all of us, especially as we plan our goals for the year.

After reading books about personal hopes/dreams/goals we made a list of ideas for ourselves and each student picked a hope and dream that they want to focus on in first grade. The slideshow below shows what each student's hope and dream is and, though they may seem to be lofty goals, we will get to all of them this year! I felt so excited watching this slideshow and can't wait to help the students start reaching toward their hopes and dreams for the year!

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The Portraits Are Finished!

We have finished our self portraits and they are ready to hang up on the wall! These always turn out so wonderfully and I love seeing them on the wall adding color and personality to our classroom throughout the year! They always make me smile. Below are photos of the finished products. You will be able to see them on the wall at Curriculum Night this Thursday or at Open House in a few weeks!

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