Weekly Blog #5

This week in my 1st grade classroom, the students are working on becoming experts with addition and subtraction problems.  On this day, specifically, the students were given an Addition and Subtraction Facts Table to help them solve the problems.  As you can see in the photo, there is a line highlighted in blue along the top of the table and down the left side which are numbered 1-9.  These lines tell the students where to start with their math problem. 

The objective of the lesson is to have students use the chart to assist them while they solve multiple addition and subtraction problems.  The chart adds a level of assistance, or difficulty, based on the specific students' skills with math.  Based on the current thinking of most of the 1st graders in my classroom, I see this chart as a helpful.  Many students are still struggling with "memorizing" and automatically knowing basic addition and subtraction problems so I feel that this chart makes a great aid.  For this student, Nick, it was clearly helpful.  The page wanted students to use the entire chart to solve the problems, but Nick found that it was easier for him to do so if he took an extra sheet of paper and aligned it with the numbers then drew an arrow to the answer. 

If this chart was not provided, I would imagine that Nick and most of the other students in the class would start to solve the problems using their fingers.  Because this is true, I think that Nick shows an above average level of understanding of mathematical thinking for this problem because he found his own way to alter the chart for what works best for him. 

If I were to suggest approaches to advance Nick's thinking, I would first suggest that he solve a number of double digit addition and subtraction problems with a similar chart that would be altered for larger numbers.  I think that this would help him see that a chart such as this could help with large numbers as well as "easy" 1-digit problems.  I would also suggest that the then try to solve addition and subtraction problems without a chart to help.  This would ensure that Nick really understands the concepts of addition and subtraction and not just relying on the chart to help him find his answers.