Greg Johnson
Section 1
Grade 1
Mrs. Rundle
Eagle Bluff
11/21/02
Spider Subtraction Using Multiple Representations
I. Objectives
Goal: To reinforce student subtraction skills and introduce them to different ways of expressing a subtraction problem.
Learning Objectives: After the lesson on subtraction, the first
grade students will be able to translate any
subtraction problem into any of four of Robert Lesh’s five interdependent
representational modes (manipulatives, pictures, written symbolic, and spoken
symbolic), when given any subtraction problems, represented by (manipulatives,
pictures, written symbols, and spoken symbols) by the teacher in the lesson
and on the teacher made worksheets (attached) with 80% accuracy.
II. Standards:
Wisconsin:
A.4.2 Communicate mathematical ideas in a variety of ways, including words,
numbers, symbols, pictures, charts, graphs, tables, diagrams, and models
A.4.3 Connect mathematical learning with other subjects, personal experiences, current events, and personal interests
B.4.1 Represent and explain whole numbers, decimals, and fractions with
* physical materials
* number lines and other pictorial models
* verbal descriptions
* place-value concepts and notation
* symbolic renaming (e.g., 43=40+3=30+13)
Onalaska First Grade Math Curriculum Standards:
* Adds and subtracts single digits
* Writes and illustrates addition and subtraction sentences to ten
* Represents
and records problems using, pictures, numbers, words and or voice
* Shows efficiency with math facts to ten
* Reads and understands +, -, and =
* Understands vocabulary of addition and subtraction
* Chooses the
appropriate operations in problems using numbers to ten
III. Materials/Pre-Instruction
Materials:
* Trade book:
London, Jonathan. Dream Weaver. San Diego: Harcourt Brace
and Company, 1998.
* Dry erase
board, markers, magnetic tape, M&Ms, mini-eyes, worksheets, scratch paper.
Preparation resources:
* Cason, Elizabeth.
Course Packet: Curriculum and Methods in Mathematics Education.
pg. 42 (2002)
* Worksheets –original
* Lesson plan-original
Pre-instruction:
* Background
knowledge assessed by checking the students work in previous math chapters.
* Learner’s
interest aroused by praising the class on their previous success with subtraction
and by telling them that they will be using new and fun ways to make subtraction
problems.
* Setting the
learning purpose will be done by reading a story about spiders; the students
are currently in a spider thematic unit, telling them that spiders
and their prey can help them learn new ways to express subtraction problems
in different ways will make the lesson relevant.
IV. Instruction
The teacher will engage the students in a class activity that will enhance
student learning by using many translations between Lesh’s representational
modes.
* Spoken Symbolic toWritten Symbolic: The teacher will warm the
class up by saying a subtraction problem and asking the class to write it.
* Manipulative to Written Symbolic: Students will have a worksheet
(attached) with a spider web with a spider on it. Students will given
M&Ms, which will act as bugs, the teacher will ask the students to place
some of the bugs on the web and some of them off the web. The students
will then be asked to write the subtraction number sentence the web is showing.
* Written Symbolic to Manipulative: The students will be given
a subtraction number sentence that has been written on the board and be asked
to show this sentence by using their M&Ms and spider web.
* Manipulative to Spoken Symbolic: The students will be asked
to place some of their M&M bugs on their web and some of them off the
web. The students will then be asked to verbally share with their neighbor
their subtraction problem.
* Spoken Symbolic to Manipulative: The teacher will tell the students
a subtraction problem and they will have to express it using their M&M
bugs and spider webs. The teacher will circulate to check the students
work.
* Picture toWritten Symbolic: The teacher will handout a worksheet
with pictures of spider webs, with spiders, and flies. Some of the
flies are caught in the web and some of them aren’t the students must interpret
the picture and write the number sentence.
* Written Symbolic to Picture: The teacher will write a subtraction
problem on the dry erase or chalkboard and the students will translate the
problem by drawing a picture of flies caught in the spider web and flies
that aren’t.
Higher Level thinking:
* Arrange your subtraction
problem to form a new problem with the same answer.
*
Explain why this subtraction problem is the same, but looks different.
Relevancy:
*
This lesson will be made relevant by its connection to the Spider thematic
unit the students are currently embarked in. Spiders, flies, and subtraction
are all a part of everyday life.
Closure:
*
The students will compile a list of the different ways they can represent
a subtraction problem.
V. Post-Instruction
Post-Instruction:
* Handout: Worksheet with pictures of spider webs, with spiders,
and flies. Some of the flies are caught in the web and some of them
aren’t the students must interpret the picture and write the number sentence.
Assessment of Student Learning:
* Nineteen out of twenty-one students met the learning objectives.
Through observation and the collection of the student’s worksheets I was
able to assess the student’s comprehension of the lesson material.
I believe the two students who were not able to meet the learning objectives
were off-task and had the ability to successfully complete the activities.
My cooperating teacher asked to keep the worksheet from this activity, so
I have no physical evidence of the student assessment.
* The students had the hardest time translating from written to picture.
The most common mistake students would make would be expressing the total
number objects (flies) as the difference.
Self-Evaluation:
* Overall, I think the lesson went very well. The students caught on
to the different ways of expressing subtraction problems and had fun doing
it thanks to the M&Ms. I learned that with first graders I should
have given the students an equal number of M&Ms instead of just handfuls,
but they survived. If I were to implement this lesson again I would
ask the students to brainstorm some ideas about different ways they could
"show" a math problem. I think it would have been beneficial for them
to have done this brainstorming activity for them to start thinking in terms
of different representational modes, as opposed to me just giving them the
different ways.
Back to Greg's teaching page