Ep 43: 1st Grade Tasks for Building a Thinking Classroom!

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,560
Last week we were talking all about tasks to hit kindergarten standards.

2
00:00:04,560 --> 00:00:07,440
Today we're talking about tasks to hit some first grade standards.

3
00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:19,680
Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Make Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,

4
00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:24,800
specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense of

5
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:31,040
their students. I never thought I would say but I was really enjoying creating tasks for first grade

6
00:00:31,040 --> 00:00:36,320
because in kindergarten of course I want stories, I want them to get immersed in what's happening,

7
00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:41,520
but also they're in kindergarten so they do need a lot of practice with counting, number writing,

8
00:00:41,520 --> 00:00:46,400
counting sequence, things like that. But I feel like in first grade they have a better handle on

9
00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:51,600
it so you can get a little bit deeper and do a little more stories because they have a foundation

10
00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:56,560
for the math that they'll be need to be doing or the ways that they might express themselves

11
00:00:56,560 --> 00:01:02,720
both verbally and written down to show all of the great thinking that they're doing. So today I'm

12
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:08,080
going to share some tasks for first grade that you might want to try with your students. I find

13
00:01:08,080 --> 00:01:14,000
addition, subtraction, traditional problem solving, there's a lot of tasks out there. I've created a

14
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:19,760
lot myself and those are really great especially when you can dip your toes into a story but also

15
00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:24,000
have them exposed and practicing all of the different problem types. Today I'm going to share

16
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:28,720
some tasks that are four standards that sometimes might get overlooked but sometimes you just kind

17
00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:35,680
of need a break from addition and subtraction. So the first one is for graphing and so in this one

18
00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:40,880
the kids go to a carnival called the Laugh-A-Lot Carnival and at this carnival there is so many

19
00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:47,200
things to do. So your students voted on rides, snacks, and games they wanted to play at the

20
00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:53,920
carnival and in the task they are kind of organizing the data about the rides, the snacks,

21
00:01:53,920 --> 00:02:00,480
and the games that the kids wanted to play. So they have three different data sets for rides,

22
00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:06,000
games, and snacks and the kids have to organize it so they have to figure out how many were in each

23
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:13,600
category and answer questions and create a graph to represent the data that they collected. And this

24
00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:19,600
and this kind of builds on itself by starting with just two options moving to three and then four

25
00:02:19,600 --> 00:02:24,320
and students making a graph for each of these data sets which is the thin slicing part. The

26
00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:29,680
check your understanding is that they've also kind of wanted to play games and see what kind of prizes

27
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:35,120
might be available. They can choose if they want two categories in their data three or four to

28
00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:40,400
reinforce the skills that they had been working on. The next task I'm going to share is a measuring

29
00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:48,080
task. So this task involves two characters the cube queen and the popsicle stick king. So these two

30
00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:53,440
are remodeling a room in their castle and they need your students help to measure the various

31
00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:58,720
things that they want to put into this room that they are remodeling in their castle. So your

32
00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:03,680
students have a list of classroom items that they will measure and so on day one they're going to

33
00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:09,040
measure these things with cubes to figure out how long or short these things are and on day two

34
00:03:09,040 --> 00:03:13,440
they're going to be measuring these things with popsicle sticks. So the first one is the queen's

35
00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:19,760
measurement, the second one is the popsicle stick king's measurement. The thin slicing is the variety

36
00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:25,760
of things that they can measure and at the end instead of a check your understanding task this

37
00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:31,440
will be more of a reflection on when it's best to measure with certain items. So they're going to

38
00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:37,120
answer some questions and fill in the blank about when it might be best to measure with sticks

39
00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:46,000
versus cubes and why that might make a difference. This next task is a fraction task and in this task

40
00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:51,280
your students are helping the delicious pizzeria. If you couldn't tell I love a good pun I also

41
00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:57,760
think it adds a little more fun to the task that you're doing. So at the delicious pizzeria they

42
00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:03,520
have orders that they are trying to fill but these orders are either between two sharers or four

43
00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:08,800
sharers. So on the recording sheet they have basically order slips and it either shows a

44
00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:15,120
circle pizza like a circular pizza that the clients want or a rectangular pizza and how many

45
00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:19,520
sharers they want it partitioned into. So on the recording sheet they're either going to partition

46
00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:24,560
between two and four sharers and once they get to the check your understanding they might even have

47
00:04:25,280 --> 00:04:31,360
a pizza with three sharers for a little extra challenge. Keeping on brand with the story theme

48
00:04:31,360 --> 00:04:38,000
the next task is called the hundreds chart thief. So there is a thief that has stolen numbers

49
00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:43,040
off of the hundreds chart and your students need to use their number recognition and pattern

50
00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:48,400
recognition in a hundreds chart to figure out which items have been stolen or which numbers have been

51
00:04:48,400 --> 00:04:54,080
stolen by the hundreds chart thief. And similarly their recording sheet or their thin slicing is

52
00:04:54,080 --> 00:04:58,400
other sections of the hundreds chart that have been messed with that your kids need to figure out

53
00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:05,120
which numbers are missing. Kind of my first category of tasks do tend to be more story related

54
00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:09,840
that they can really get immersed into but at the same time that doesn't work for everything

55
00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:14,960
and there might be other things that might engage your students as well and variety is a spice of

56
00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:19,920
life right we like to switch it up. So the next two tasks I'm going to talk about are for composing

57
00:05:19,920 --> 00:05:26,160
shapes and skip counting but it's not necessarily a story it's more visual and task based or

58
00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:32,640
challenge based. So for skip counting by fives your kids will get different images of dice faces

59
00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:38,640
and different arrangements that all show five. So this is a really great opportunity for you to see

60
00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:44,240
if your kids are just skip counting five ten fifteen twenty or if they are starting to group

61
00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:48,800
maybe they prefer to work in groups of tens or groups of twenty. So you can see kind of the way

62
00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:53,280
that they're starting to think about numbers and grouping smaller numbers to bigger ones with a

63
00:05:53,280 --> 00:05:59,920
variety of images dice images that they have to work with in both the fin slicing and also the

64
00:05:59,920 --> 00:06:06,800
check your understanding piece. And the bonus last but not least for today is a composing shapes task

65
00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:11,600
which is similar to the kindergarten one but these shapes are a little bit more complex and require a

66
00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:17,760
little more thought for your students to be able to do. So they have four different shape challenges

67
00:06:17,760 --> 00:06:23,440
that they'll work on and then again in the check your understanding piece they have challenges that

68
00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:28,800
are a little bit tougher or if they're feeling crazy with it they really enjoy it they can try

69
00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:35,040
all of them at the same time. Let me know if you have any questions about these tasks if you're

70
00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:40,800
going to try them and you can check out the blog post to see images of what these tasks look like

71
00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:45,760
and get a better idea if they will work for you in your classroom. The hundredth day of school is

72
00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:51,360
approaching and their hundreds chart thief is a perfect task to do on the hundredth day of school

73
00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:56,560
and if you would like to give it a try you can get it absolutely free in the show notes there is a

74
00:06:56,560 --> 00:07:16,400
link where I will send it to you for free and you can give it a try and let me know what your students think.