This would be fun to use for centers or have students play when they finish classwork early.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Tangram App for 1st graders
Tangram Puzzles for Kids at ABCya!
This would be fun to use for centers or have students play when they finish classwork early.
This would be fun to use for centers or have students play when they finish classwork early.
1.G Grandfather Tang's Story
Alignments to Content Standards: 1.G.A.2
Task
Materials
- A copy of Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert
- One set of tangrams for each student (see note in commentary)
- A set of tangrams for the teacher (magnetic for the whiteboard or colored to use on a document projector)
- Character worksheet
- Crayons
Actions
- The teacher reads Grandfather Tang's Story to the class. As the teacher comes to each character in the story, note the picture of the animal that is an outline of a shape that can be made with tangrams. Students may need to spend some time looking to see how these outlines represent the animals since they are somewhat abstract. Ask the students if they see familiar shapes as components of the animal outlines--for example, the tail of the fox is a trapezoid and the wings of the hawk are triangles.
- After the class has read the story, the students choose animals from the story to make with the tangrams. The worksheet shows the tangram animals, and when they have made an animal, they color the corresponding shape on the worksheet.
- The teacher can demonstrate for students how to turn and place the tangram shapes as needed to support the students.
- After the students have worked on making 2 or more animals from the book, they can make their own animals.
IM Commentary
The purpose of this task is for students to compose two-dimensional shapes to create a composite shape using the 7 tangram pieces. It is essential that the language the teacher uses during the task is precise to support students' academic vocabulary development. For example, "turn the square so one side is lined up with the shorter side of the rhombus to create the tail of the squirrel."
Trying to make the animals without the internal lines is very challenging, so the worksheet shows how the pieces are composed for each animal. This helps students see the shapes both as a single figure (consisting of the outline and a single region filled inside it) and as a composite shape that can be decomposed into smaller shapes. If the teacher wants to challenge the students, then they can try to make the animals just looking at the outline shown in the book.
As an extra challenge, see if the students can combine their tangrams into the original shape of a large square.
Note: The tangrams can be plastic machine-made sets or students can make them in a preceding lesson. There is a template for creating tangrams attached to this task. If the students create their own tangrams, they will see that the 7 pieces originate from a large square. Making the tangrams for themselves also helps students develop the ability to compose and decompose figures.
Not all of the characters are included on the character worksheet. The students can build these as time permits.
Solution
- If the student completes the fox fairy, hawk, and squirrel, then they will color those three figures:
- There is no single solution for each of the students' own pictures
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Friday, November 20, 2015
How to Teach Subitizing for Numbers 1-4
How to Teach Subitizing: 1 – 4
The comparison of numeracy to literacy is curious.Learning math is the opposite of learning to read. When you read, usually simultaneous to learning a language, you sound out words and then put meaning to them. When you learn to count and do math, you know the meaning inherently and then put a language to it.
At some point we learn to recognize words without sounding them out. And at some point we learn to recognize quantities without counting them out. This is called subitizing.
The Your Baby Can Read program uses the concept of subitizing to teach reading – you show your baby the word alongside the object. So the shape of the word car is as recognizable as a car itself.
The children using Your Baby Can Read don’t learn to sound out words. They don’t understand the concept of letters any more than babies not using the program. But they instantly recognize the shapes of the words – giving them an (assumed) advantage.
Aside: We didn’t use the “Your Baby Can Read” program, not because it was gimmicky (I love anything that looks gimmicky), but because there is a huge DVD element to it. We decided not to put Daughter in front of the TV for her first 2 years. A decision we stuck with, but sometimes was a struggle! This article contains a “your baby can count” type program. (And it’s a free download!)
How did we learn subitizing?
I don’t recall having been taught it directly. Although I could be wrong. The research on it has been happening since the early 1900s, so it might have been taught without being labeled “subitzing.”In a previous article about why learning to subitize is important, Christine Guest commented that she learned it out of frustration for counting with chanting.I wonder how many of us do that. Are grownups so adept at subitizing that they forget that’s how we assess quantity? Maybe we’re taught to chant-count because that’s the way we think counting is.
How do you teach subitizing?
Images are accompanied by the written numeral as well as the number spoken aloud. The images would be printed on cards, done via video or “live” with 3D objects. I’m still working on the numbers 5-10 and up, but for the numbers 1-4, the following 8 styles of image sets would be done twice. Once using the same objects for each image set, and once using different objects for each image set.
- Organized in a row vertically.
- Organized in a row horizontally.
- Organized in a row diagonally.
- Organized in a row other way diagonally.
- Organized in a regular shape (triangle, square).
- Organized in a differently oriented regular shape.
- Organized in an irregular shape.
- Organized in a different irregular shape. (There will be more of these for 4 than 3, etc.)
The objects could be blocks, cars, little dolls, just about anything. I created the set below from blocks I found left in Daughter’s block set. Each zip file contains a few .jpg files with 4″ x 6″ pictures. You can print them at home or ship them to Walmart,Target, CVS, etc. for printing. I left off the MathFour.com logo so the kiddos wouldn’t get distracted. Please share them along with links back here.
Subitizing Digital Flash Cards
Click the image above to view the subitizing flash cards. Use these with kindergarten and first grade students to help them with number sense.
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