Bridges Student Work
Grade Two

Assessment before the unit

Assessment after the unit

At the beginning of the unit Vincent only recognized the equilateral triangle as a “true” triangle, although it was allowed to be upside down. He has nothing to say about the properties of a triangle, but describes it in terms of a visual prototype—something it looks like.

Six weeks later, Vincent accepts anything that has 3 sides as a triangle, although he over-generalized a bit. He has much more to say about the properties of a triangle, including an observation about the lack of symmetry in a particular right triangle.

Assessment before the unit

Assessment after the unit

Assessment before the unit

Assessment after the unit

Andrew, who drew only repeating patterns at the beginning of the unit, is now able to draw growing patterns. Eloise, who wasn’t able to make general statements about patterns at the beginning of the unit, is now able to.

Late October Hungry Ants Picture Problem

April Presents & Parcels Picture Problem

June Toy Store Picture Problem

Like many (but certainly not all) second graders, this student started and ended the year as a counter. He drew and counted marks of some sort to solve all three problems. The big change is that by June he is working in chunks of 100’s, 10’s, and 1’s instead of counting individual tally marks or packages.

His diagrams became more abstract as the year progressed. In October, he drew all 6 ants in question, making 6 legs for each and then counted them all by 1’s. In April he used tiny squares (units) to represent the presents children bought. By June he moved to quicker, more schematic sketches. He is also quite careful to label his diagrams in April and in June, marking them as 1’s, 10’s, or 100’s.

The student was able to explain his work using words from the very beginning, but his writing and explanation became fuller as the year progressed; he told a more complete story each time.

While it is clear that he solved all three problems with pictures rather than numbers, he was able to write number sentences to accompany his sketches and words in the later part of the year.