Montague

Student Work Analysis Blog

            Thursday we taught a lesson on addition with the kindergarteners. We started the lesson with me modeling how to do the first 3 problems of the ladybug addition worksheet. Then, the next three were for students to work in partners with. Each pair of students had a die with numbers 1-6 on it. The first student would roll the die, they would identify the number and draw spots on one side of the ladybug that matched the number. Then, the next student would roll the die and do the same thing. After the spots were drawn, they would write the number sentence underneath (i.e 5+2=7) and they would also have to read the number sentence from left to write, so that they not only added the total number of spots but so that they had experience with number sentences and naming the + and = signs. Then, the last 3 problems on the page were for students to do independently if there was time, however, there was not enough time. 9 problems for kindergarten was probably way too many therefore, I would change this to about 5 or 6 if I were to teach the lesson. I also think that it would have been beneficial to ensure that there was time for students to work independently after the teacher modeled and after they had time to work with partners so that we could have gone around to get a better idea on who had a good idea on what to do and who did not. I do realize that this was the first time addition was taught and they are only in kindergarten therefore, they will get ample opportunities to do more addition problems that we can assess them in a better way.

            Looking at one students worksheet, it shows that they were able to follow along during the first three problems when I modeled it for the class but when they were released to work with their partners, this group was not ready! They did not do anything correct for the remainder of the worksheet. I think that this worksheet does reveal much about the student’s current mathematical understanding aside from the fact that they weren’t ready to work on their own because they don’t understand addition or they did not understand the directions of the worksheet. Also, the die could have been confusing to some students because when we were modeling it, we used a die that had dots, not numbers. But when we released them on their own, we gave them dice that had numbers, which seemed to confuse students.

            One way that I would re- do this would be to only give about 4 or 5 problems. 2 would be done as a class, 2 in groups and have students do 1 on their own. This way, I think that it would not be as overwhelming to have so many problems on one worksheet for kindergarten. Also, I think that I am going to make sheets of the lady bug with just 1 big lady bug, put them in slip covers so that this could be used as a center to further students’ understanding. Students will be able to use dry erase markers on the slipcovers.