Stephanie Wilson - Student Work #1

Students in my first grade classroom were asked to complete this worksheet by doing all of the simple addition and subtraction problems. The students were all given a number line in which they were instructed to use to do these math problems if they could not do the problems in their heads.They were told that the answers were all either 10, 9, 8, or 7, and that if they received a different number than one of these they had the wrong answer and should try again. They were instructed to not start coloring until they were finished with the math problems and had their work checked by myself or my MT. If they had all the problems correct, then they could start coloring the picture.

The purpose of this task was to get the students to practice their simple addition and subtraction skills, and use the assistance of a number line if needed. Many of the students in my class struggle to do their work on their own; this is for reasons such as ADD/ADHD/boredom, students being overwhelmed with amount of problems on this page, students thinking they can't do it, etc. This task was at an appropriate level for these students because the problems were simple enough that students could work out the answers on their own while developing their number line skills. When students still were demonstrating that they could not sufficiently complete this task on their own, my MT announced for those students to only complete the addition problems, which is easier for most kids than subtraction.

While I was walking around the classroom and helping students, I anticipated that many of them would confuse the addition and subtraction problems because they completely ignore/disregard the symbol, assuming it's always addition. For students that were struggling to complete this task, I had them first focus only on the problems that included +/- 0, because this is the most simple math problem for young students to understand. From there, I would have them complete the +/- 1, and so on.

This particular student whose work I chose was the first one to correctly complete his work, and did so a significant amount of time earlier than anyone else in the class. He had skipped over a few problems that I had him complete, but all of his work was correct. I would place this student as one of the top mathematical students in the class because he consistently demonstrates advanced math skills. I am hoping that as the semester goes on my MT can give him harder work than the rest of the class so that he is not held back and so he can advance his mathematical thinking and understanding.