Lakeside School at Black Kettle Farm offers birth –3rd grade education and Farm and Forest Summer Camp based on the Waldorf philosophy on a working farm in Essex, NY.

Lakeside School: News From 1st Grade – Math

I love this time of year in 1st grade.  The children seem to show new maturity and capability alongside the rising sap and energy they exude.  I am seeing great strides in their social interactions, being able to ask someone to stop something but not getting frustrated right off the bat and the other child being able to hear what’s being requested and respond in kind.  It’s really a big lesson for them to realize that someone may not know they are bothering someone else and that in order for another to know, you need to ask them.  And that has been happening in leaps and bounds recently.  Each of them is coming into their own in unique ways and their individualities are being respected, honored and encouraged by their peers.  It’s really nice to see this growth and development for each of them and as a class.

Their math skills are taking off.  We have been doing math in a variety of different modes.  We have been moving math, singing

math, having math stories, writing math, solving problems, working collaboratively on solutions, changing things up in unexpected ways, and generally having fun.  Our focus this block is on the four operations.  You may have seen some of the morning work we do where I give them 6-8 written problems they need to solve.  It’s great to be able to have one on one time with each of them to help them through places they get stuck.  We continue to do lots of story problems (word problems).  I sometimes give them manipulative to solve the problems, sometimes they solve them in their head and with their fingers, and sometimes they draw pictures of the problem in order to solve it.  We have then been translating these story problems into written number sentences.  Once we do that we share how we came to the solutions and we check the number sentences to make sure it checks out.  Here’s how one of these problems went on Monday:

I told of how I made two pans of corn bread over the weekend and there were 8 pieces in each pan.  The children drew a picture of this.  Then I asked how many pieces of corn bread there were.  Everyone came up with 16.  I then asked how the came up with that solution and how we could write a number sentence.  Once child said, “3 + 3 + 2”.  So I wrote that up and we figured out this was for 1 pan of corn bread.  I said, “Ok, but how about for the two pans?”.  Another child said, “Oh, I know, 4 x 3 + 4 = 16.”  I wasn’t expecting that.  I took a moment to pause and do the calculation and it came out correct.  I then asked for an explanation of how that number sentence was arrived at.  The answer was well is you have 3 + 3 + 2 for one pan then you have another 3 + 3 + 2 for the other pan and there are four 3s and the two twos is 4 so 4 x 3 + 4 = 16.  We all saw how this was arrived at and did the calculations to check.  Then I asked for other way to write this story problem because I love multiple ways to do math problems.  We came up with 8 + 8 = 16 and 8 x 2 = 16.  I had each child who came up with a different number sentence to explain their process.  And that was just one of our problems on Monday!

Today we went outside to jump rope with our times tables.  We’re currently working on our 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 11 times tables.  In first grade I expect them to be present and reciting with the whole group but I don’t expect them to be able to do all of these tables independently forwards and backwards.  We’ll get to that in second grade.  They’re just exploding with enthusiasm with math right now.  We then walked math problems.  They started up at the fence and I asked them to show me 4 + 5.  They took 4 and then 5 steps and calculated where they arrived.  Then I went into minus 2 and they took two steps backwards.  Then I had them figure out in groups how to move 4 x 5.  Each group came to the correct solution using two different methods.  Gosh, I love math.

We’re also working on our play right now.  If you haven’t heard it’s Hansel and Gretel.  We have been getting into the different

characters, experimenting with different ways of moving and speaking.  It’s great to see them try on different ways of being, some that are very foreign from their natural inclinations.  I’m seeing it frees some of the children from their habits and allows them to see they can chose how to be and not be bound by their current tendencies.  It’s also a lot of fun.  We will be playing with the play for a while now.  Each child will have an opportunity to play each character before we polish the play for sharing.  I will let you know when the family sharing will be so you can plan for that.  I need to see a bit more how much time it will take us before I finalize a date.

In movement and games the children have been in a tumbling block.  Controlled moment is something that is quite challenging.  Through their love of Mrs. Gucker, they have come leaps and bounds in this area.  They loved the tumbling block and are now onto doing May Pole dancing.

I hope that you are well and not too busy at this burgeoning time of year.  Many warm wishes to you all and have a great weekend.

Kathleen Morse
1st Grade Teacher