Bridges Student Work
Grade One

One of the sorts suggested by the children in September was made into this class chart depicting whether the bugs had wings or not.

September class chart depicting bugs with and without wings

Many other opportunities to work with sorting are offered in the first few months of Bridges and Number Corner. The student Number Corner book checks understanding in October by providing opportunities for children to determine which bug doesn’t belong in the set. Sets of four bugs are ingeniously constructed in such a way that any one of the bugs can be eliminated if a logical reason can be given. Here are two student examples. The one on the left was created by a very able student whose handwriting is easily decipherable by November. She is very competent with this and other sorting activities.

The other sample comes from a student who obviously changed his mind several times on the second two items, and who also is a less-skilled writer, needing help finishing phrases and spelling. When the teacher checked the student’s explanations, he was quite surprised because this student had been very quiet and passive during the lessons leading up to this activity. This activity shows that the student is gradually building an early foundation for collecting and interpreting data. Through this insight into the student’s thinking the teacher’s understanding of his abilities changed, as did his future interactions in lessons that followed.

Number Corner Sorting Example 1

Number Corner Sorting Example 2

Bug Picture Problem

Student-posed Bug Picture Problem

In the first problem she created, she starts off with a simple addition problem similar to the example problem presented to the class earlier, but she makes it with a larger number of bugs.

Sea Star Picture Problem

Student-posed Sea Star Picture Problem

The sea star problem she created is patterned after the easiest example problem, ignoring the thrust of the rest of the example problems where the number of arms and legs were the focus.

During the lobster unit in the middle of January, she produced a problem much like one of the example problems, now focusing on how many lobsters have what number of legs.

Lobster Picture Problem

Student-posed Lobster Picture Problem

Her Penguin problem from early March may look simple, but this type of problem can throw off many children who get confused about the concept of nests and babies, often ending up adding the two numbers together to provide a solution. She understood this perfectly.

Penguin Picture Problem

Student-posed Penguin Picture Problem

This child’s picture problems show the progression of increasing skills in creating and solving problems. The student’s ladybug picture demonstrates her understanding of addition. The familiarity and confidence with addition extends to the sea stars, although she did not demonstrate the concept transition to repeated addition or multiplication until January with the lobsters. By March she clearly demonstrates her understanding of multiples. In the follow-up whole group sessions she was able to solve most of the problems constructed by her classmates, and could show several ways of arriving at a solution. Her methods included pictures, counting patterns, tallying, and equations. By year’s end she was very capable of problem solving, having moved from solving simple problems to more complex ones for this age group.

As you can see in this example from September, students start out writing very simple equations directly related to the calendar grid pocket chart (butterflies, praying mantises, and beetles) and the magnetic tiles which represent the number of days this month. Counting patterns and oral comments have also been recorded.

As students move through October, the equations become more complex and sophisticated with the addition of money and the hundreds grid. After November, students sometimes write equations on slips of paper and glue them close to the appropriate calendar component. Students are encouraged to make as many combinations possible in the time allotted.

October Number Corner

The paper calendar components can also be offered to the students so they can color them in and record equations independently. This gives the teacher a good indication of how well each child understands the group activity. The following examples are from May. On the left you see a very able student’s work using three of the calendar components. The range of his equation-writing abilities is clearly illustrated. Next to his is a mid-ability student’s work. He chose to focus on the hundreds grids that showed the 153rd day of school by writing seven different equations. The student has developed multiple ways to express 153 using three different models that make sense to him. He has demonstrated that he understands odd/even numbers, patterns (colors on the calendar) as well as equivalent expressions for 153, generated from the 100 grid. This student has incorporated many different strategies to demonstrate his numerical power and number sense. In this classroom, Friday’s Figuring greatly improved students’ equation-writing abilities, especially during problem-solving situations.

Student working with calendar components, Example 1

Student working with calendar components, Example 2