We have been learning about addition and subtraction these past two weeks. It has been wonderful to see the students strategies growing and watching them engage in the problem solving process. This morning I wanted to see how well they could apply these strategies from their 'toolbox' independently.
To do this I gave them a 'Thinkboard'. They are very familiar with these as a way of organising their mathematical thinking. After a brief introduction they set to work. The students were really engaged in the process. By allowing them to choose their own numbers the task was open enough that they could challenge themselves as much as they felt comfortable with.
The completed 'Thinkboards' demonstrate a range of strategies adopted by the students. You can see below in the photographs that students worked with 1 digit numbers through to addition of 2 digit by 2 digit numbers. There were some students that created multi-step problems which I was not actually expecting. Most students chose to create an addition thinkboard rather than a subtraction one which was also interesting.
These work samples give me a great deal of information about where to next for individual students.
Some comments from Year 1...
What a fabulous strategy. It really assists the students to scaffold their thinking.
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