Help me give my students hands on, concept driven lessons around number sense, counting, addition and subtraction using the Rekenrek manipulatives and lessons.
I teach first grade at a Title I school with over 800 students in grades pre-K to fifth grade. A Title One school means that we have a significant percentage of our school population that require free or reduced lunches. We are an ethnically and economically diverse school with over 50 different languages spoken in the homes of our school community. We also support a large number of students from military families which gives our school a patriotic flavor.
I teach first grade.
I have twenty-five enthusiastic and energetic students that love learning, they especially love math and science! When I ask them what they know in math they proudly tell me they can count to infinity or that they know how to multiply or how they can add big numbers! They are always excited to tell me how smart they are! I love their enthusiasm. I love that they want to learn new things. I love that they see themselves are smart learners and I want to encourage this type of enthusiasm in my students in all subjects!
My Project
My first grade students learn best by doing and experiencing in order to fully understand most concepts. Math is no different, and we use manipulatives daily in our all of our math lessons to solidify their learning. Math memorization, a common practice in the past, will only take a student so far! If we truly want students to understand complex mathematical concepts then we must allow our students to see and manipulate items in order to fully understand them and apply the concepts.
Conceptual understanding in math means that students know more than just facts and methods, and it is the foundation for all mathematical learning to come!
Every year in my first grade class some students, and their parents, excitedly tell me that they are learning multiplication. This is exciting, however; when I offer a child blocks and ask them to show me what 3 X 2 looks like, they are unable to. These students have just memorized the facts and they do not yet understand the concept. This is a huge miss.
Rekenreks, and the included lessons, will give my students hands on math experiences around mathematical concepts such as counting, place value, addition, subtraction, and number sense. This kind of conceptual learning, where they can see it and move items to show me what they know, will put them on a more solid mathematical path upon which they can build. Having a class set of Rekenreks will allow me to have whole group lessons and then break out to smaller groups if needed. Having the additional four sets of the 100 Rekenreks will allow me to challenge small groups of students who are ready for more challenging number experiences.
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