Valentine's Day Math

The students have been working on the strategy of "Making Ten" to help them with larger addition problems. But, in order to do that, they need to know what addends make ten quickly first. So, we reviewed by adding dark and milk chocolates. You can find this template on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Doubles Snack

To review the concept of using doubles to solve addition and subtraction number situations, the students made edible dominoes. They added icing on top of a graham cracker and then drew a line down the middle with the knife. Then, they added one chocolate chip to each side to represent the pips on a domino. As they did this, they said the related addition and subtraction number sentence. Then, of course, they ate them!

Ocean Addition and Subtraction

To review addition and subtraction word problems, the students worked in groups to solve two problems using fish clipart. As they worked, we practiced strategies such as counting up or down, using pictures or manipulatives, or identifying related fact family number sentences.

Making Ten Strategy

As we continue to learn our math facts, one strategy that we continually work on is "making ten." The students practice adding and subtracting from ten so that when they encounter a larger math fact they can use their knowledge of "making ten" to quickly add the larger number. To help them get a strong hold of adding and subtracting ten, they worked over a few day period to build numbers to ten with their corresponding number sentences on Ten Frames. Fellow teachers, you can download these forms from my TpT store.

Garden Word Problems

Using our Promethean Board, the students wrote various addition and subtraction word problems and then took turns solving them by drawing pictures. After drawing pictures to help them solve the problems, the students then wrote the number sentence and answer with label. They then wrote the related fact family number sentences.

Fish Word Problems

We have been learning how to solve a variety of addition and subtraction problems. One of our lessons was to solve fish word problems. When solving word problems, one of our strategies is to draw pictures. First we read the word problems together as a class and the students decided which numbers they wanted to insert into the blanks in the word problems. Because the students could choose their own numbers, each problem was unique. The students then drew the pictures to match the numbers in their word problems. For addition, they were able to use the strategy of counting all of the pictures to identify the number sentence and answer with label. For the subtraction problem, they had to use the strategy of crossing out the pictures, or fish, that were subtracted and then count what was left to identify the number sentence nad answer with label. The students then worked in small groups to solve one another's word problems.

Christmas Tree Doubles

Last week to practice addition doubles, the students created Christmas Tree Doubles using dot paints. The students traced tree patterns on green construction paper and then used two different colors of dot paints to create ornaments, making sure they had the same number of each color. After they were finished the students wrote their double addition sentence on the tree. In first grade one of the main strategies we use in problem solving is drawing a picture. If your child is having trouble solving problems on their homework, have them draw a picture next to the problem.