Welcome to 1st Grade

Hi Everyone!
This week I wanted to take a deeper look into the Common Core NYS Standards for 1st Grade. In New York State, 1st graders are instructed to focus on four specific areas:

1. operations and algebraic thinking (1. OA)
2. number and operations in base ten (1. NBT)
3. measurement and data (1. MD)
4. geometry (1. G)

In addition these four areas are broken down, covering specific areas some of which I was surprised were part of the Grade 1 instructional expectations. My intention for this post is to cover one of the four, measurement and data which covers a board range of topics. I was most intrigued by the concept of represent and interpret data (CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.1.MD.C.4). I discovered the objective of this grade 1 instruction is to help students organize, represent and interpret data, ask and answer questions about the data, encourage students to determine how many in each and determine this using words more than or less than.

The best way to cover the concept of organize, represent and interpret data is by converting simple word problems or pictures into pictographs, tally charts or tables.

Here is an example of how the student could work on organizing data:

 

Hopefully the student will organize the messy image above into a clear chart like below. Students can recreate their own version of the 3 images by drawing them, they can use tally marks to represent the items, or they can cut out the scattered images to arrange them. In doing all of this, students will also practice their place value determining largest to smallest value of items.Here is a good format that represents both of these concepts, which can also help students learn how to read graphs and design bar graphs:
Here is a PDF worksheet that ties into this activity:

To ask and answer questions about the data students could determine votes or preferences of items. Here is a useful example to help students develop skills of asking and answering questions about data.

Lastly, students can develop their understanding of how many of an item and how many more than or less than, of an item.

I found an effective way to put this concept into practice is by dividing the class into groups, provide 3 different objects and different totals of each to all groups. Each group will work together to determine how many of each item which they will later share with the class. Some ideas for objects to use are beans, blocks, coins, counters, cubes, or paper clips (different sizes) to name a few.


https://www.k-5mathteachingresources.com/support-files/shape-graph.pdf

As I researched standard 1.MD C 4, I came across this website (https://www.ixl.com/math/grade-1) that I find could be useful to review in class with students and determine their understanding of this grade 1 unit.

Enjoy!