Being a first grade teacher is exciting, rewarding, and don't take this the wrong way...repetitive! By that I mean, you introduce a concept, and it continues to spiral throughout the year adding more depth and concepts to the original learning goal. For example, we are still working on addition and subtraction however, this time we are going to really focus on problem solving. In my first grade math teachers' focus group we are looking at ways to tackle the new standards laid before us by the Common Core in which students must not only add simply 2+3, but will need to know how to find the missing adden, apply the communitive and associative properties, fact families, and inverse relationships. Don't get me wrong we did these things before Common Core, but it is more in depth than before and our current math book series does not address these areas as much as needed to ensure that students are able to grasp and apply these concepts. So I will be searching the web, altering current materials, and use manipulatives to help students with these math concepts.
I use Singapore Math Problem Solving that uses a step by step approach and unit bars as shown above as part of my daily math time. I am also going to whip out my Kindle Fire for basic math fact practice because if students have basic math fact concepts securely ingrained, then they may not struggle with the higher order thinking concepts.
I used it last year in class as a ticket out the door and students loved it. My student teacher started bringing hers in and used it as well.
In math I really see the need to spiral, increase rigor, and practice daily math concepts. We are getting ready for our county's benchmark tests, so I am breaking my math time into chunks that allow for review of time, graphs, addition and subtraction, as well as measurement.
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