Design for Learning

Instructor: Rebecca Hastings

Grade Level/Cooperating Teacher: 1st/ Gartman
Lesson Title: Crayon Puzzles About More
Date: November 17, 2015
Curriculum Area: Math
Estimated Time: 45 minutes
Standards Connection:
1.) Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding
to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions,
e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to
represent the problem. (See Appendix A, Table 1.) [1-OA1]
Learning Objective(s):
When given a worksheet, students will identify which set of objects has more than the other set of
objects by correctly combining two sets of numbers and distinguishing which color is greater.
Learning Objective(s) stated in kid-friendly language:
Today you are going to be able to tell me which color object has more than the other object when
given a story problem.
Evaluation of Learning Objective(s):
Students will be given a worksheet with 2 story problems. They will work individually to answer
the problem. Their solution will identify a set of numbers that adds together to equal the given
number. Once they choose their number combination, they will decide which color has more.
They will be assessed on their correctness in choosing two numbers that add together to equal the
given number and assigning the given color to have more than the secondary color.
Engagement:
The teacher will first engage the students by reviewing combinations of 10. She will use the
rekenrek to have students find different combinations of 10. After reviewing how numbers
combine together, the class will then learn which number is more. Boys and girls, can I get
everyone to come join me on the carpet and find their special spot? Come sit quietly and be ready
to learn and pay attention. Today, we are going to learn than some numbers are more than
others, and some numbers are less than others. First, I want to review combining numbers
together. Can someone tell me what I am holding? A rekenrek! Thats right! I want you to raise
your hand to tell me different ways we can put 2 numbers together to make 10. The teacher will
call on students who are attentively listening and raising their hand to give their answer. She will
discuss why those 2 numbers do or dont make 10. She will point to each cube for them to count
up and reach 10. If it does not make 10, the teacher will discuss with the student/class why it does
not make 10. For example: Sally, what number combination do you want to make? 6 and 4? That
is a great one! Which color would you like to have 6 and which would you like to 4? 6 reds and 4
whites. Can you tell me why that number combination makes 10? Thats right. When you count
the red cubes one by one, you get 6. Then, when you count on from the original 6, you count 4
more cubes. The 6 red cubes plus the 4 white cubes makes 10! An example of a combination that
does not equal 10 would be: Sally, what combination of numbers do you want to use? 3 and 6?
Lets check and see if that makes 10! What color do you want to have 6 and what color do you
want to have 3? 6 red and 3 white? Okay, lets count them and see. The teacher will count the
cubes one by one, letting Sally do the verbal counting. Does that equal 10? It doesntlets try
again! They will find another number combination to make 10 then will move on.
Learning Design:

I. Teaching:
The teacher will introduce the words more, less, and equals. Once these words are
understood, she will explain crayon puzzles by giving examples of story problems and
talking through the possible solutions as a class. She will use connecting cubes as a visual
aid during this process. During this process, the teacher will use the cubes to visually

show the combinations they are suggesting. The teacher can make 2 separate towers of
each color to compare to one another in order to prove which one has more. Now boys
and girls, we are going to learn how to solve problems that are similar to the How
Many of Each? problems. Before you can understand how to work these problems, we
have to understand what the words more, less, and equal mean. I am going to write the
word more on the board. Does anyone have an idea what this means? The word more
means that something is bigger. When you are eating lunch and you are still hungry, do
you ask for more food? I know I say, can I please get some more pizza? Here is another
example. If you are trying to build a tower, but it is not tall enough, do you try to get
more blocks? I would ask my friend playing with me if I could use some of her blocks so
that I could have more. After hearing these examples, can anyone tell me another
example that uses the word more? The teacher will listen to the example, and they will
discuss it as a class. Now I want to talk about the word less. The word less means that
something is smaller than something else. Do you ever have to do chores at home? When
you are asked to do the chores, do you just want to play instead? That probably means
that you would like to have less work to do! Instead of having a lot of work, you want to
do less! Another example would be if you are waiting in line. Sometimes, if there are a lot
of people standing in the line in front of you, do you wish there were less people in line?
Can anyone give me another example of how to use the word less? The last word I want
to go over is the word equals. The word equals means the same. If you have 1 apple for
breakfast, and I have 1 apple for breakfast, then we both have an equal amount of apples
for breakfast. Another example would be if I love Christmas a lot and you love Christmas
a lot, then we both love Christmas an equal amount! Can anyone give me another
example? The teacher will now begin to introduce the problems. I am going to give you a
problem, and we are going to decide which color crayons have more than the other. The
first problem is, I have 5 blue and red crayons. There are more blue crayons than there
are red crayons. How many of each could I have? Now that you have heard the problem
once, I am going to read it again. But this time I want you to listen carefully and picture
the problem in your mind. When I finish saying the problem, I will call on some of you to
describe it in your own words. The teacher will then reread the problem and listen to
student responses. How many crayons did I say there were total? 5. Can someone tell me
one way we could put the red and blue colors together to make 5? 2 and 3. Does (insert
name)s solution have 5 crayons total? Does it have more blue crayons than red crayons?
That set of numbers equals 5 in the end. When we have 3 blue crayons and 2 red crayons,
we can see that there are more blue than red. Why are there more blue? There are 3 blue
crayons and 2 red crayons. 3 is a bigger number than 2, which means there are more
blue than red. Can anyone else give me a suggestion of another combination that makes
5 altogether? 4 and 1. Does (insert name)s solution have 5 crayons total? Can someone
tell me which color has more when we have 4 blue and 1 red? Thats right! There are
more blue than red in this case. Why are there more blue? 4 is a bigger number than 1,
which makes the blue have more. Do these problems seem similar to another kind of
problem we have done in the past? They are similar to the How Many of Each problems.
But there is a difference. Can anyone tell me what is different about these problems?
There is an extra set to these problems. The extra part to this problem is when it says
there are more blue crayons than red. You are not just combining numbers; you are
also deciding which color has more than the other. Here is another problem. I have 9
crayons. Some of the crayons are blue and some of the crayons are red. How many of
each color could I have? Can anyone give me a solution for this problem? What 2
numbers add together to make 9? 6 and 3. Thats right! Which color do you want to have
6 and which color do you want to have 3? 6 red and 3 blue. Which color in this
combination has more crayons? Why does the color red have more than the color blue?
Which number is greater than the other? 6 is greater than 3. There are more red cubes
than there are blue , which means that red had more than blue. What is another
combination that makes 9? 7 and 2. 8 and 1. 4 and 5. Those are all great combinations!

The teacher will ask the same questions for each of these possibilities. Does everyone
understand what we have been doing? Does anyone have any questions?
II. Opportunity for Practice:
Students will be given a set of problems to solve and will work with a partner. They will
collaborate and discuss their thinking to gain full understanding of this new concept. I am
going to give you a set of problems, and I want you to work with a partner to figure out
the answer to the problem. Lets read through the problems and discuss what you are
going to do. The first problem says, I have 9 bouncy balls. Some of these bouncy balls
are orange and some are yellow. I have more yellow bouncy balls. How many of each
color bouncy balls could I have? How many bouncy balls do you have altogether? 9.
Which color do you want to have more of? Yellow. That means the number of yellow
bouncy balls is going to be bigger than the number of orange bouncy balls. There are
several different number combinations you can make, so there will be more than 1
answer! The second problem you are given says, I have 7 bouncy balls. Some of these
bouncy balls are orange and some are yellow. I have more orange bouncy balls. How
many of each color bouncy balls could I have? How many bouncy balls do you have
total here? 7. You are going to work together to find the solution to this problem. I have
made sets of counting cubes that you can use when trying to figure out the solution to the
problem. You are allowed to sit on the carpet or at a table, whichever you prefer. Make
sure to work together with your partner and agree on your solution. Are you ready to
work with your partner to solve these problems? The students will then work in pairs to
solve the problems. They will be scattered across the room. Once the problem solving has
been completed, the class will regroup on the carpet to discuss what they have done. Can
someone tell me what they got for the first problem? We had 5 yellow bouncy balls and 4
orange bouncy balls. That made us have more yellow bouncy balls than orange! That
was great work Sally! You are very right. Does anyone else have a different answer? The
teacher will listen to the different solutions students give and discuss them as a class.
III. Assessment
The students will return to their desk and work individually on the worksheet given. They
will do numbers 1 and 2. If they are fast finishers, they will continue on to number 3 and
4. They will also be challenged to find more than one solution to the problem. Boys and
girls, I am going to give you a worksheet that you are going to complete on your own.
You are going to do numbers 1 and 2. I want you to remain sitting on the carpet while I
pass them out. Then I want us to read through numbers 1 and 2 so we know what they
say. Here are your papers. Is everyone ready to read the problems together? The class
will read the problems together to make sure everyone understands what it says. If you
finish quickly, I want you to do numbers 3 and 4 to continue practicing. After you do all
of the questions, I want you to go back to the different problems and see if you can find
more than one solution to the problem. But remember, what I mainly want you to do are
numbers 1 and 2. I am going to be looking to make sure you understand what the word
more means. I want to see number combinations that equal the total numbers of crayons
given. I want you to have the color they tell you is more correct also. Does everyone
understand? Great! Lets get to being problem solvers!
IV. Closure:
Boys and girls, you have worked so hard today and listened so well. Can anyone tell me
what the word more means? Thats right. It means that something is bigger than
something else. Can you tell me what the word less means? Thats right. It means that
something is smaller than another object. What about the word equals? It means that
something is the same as something else. If you are given 5 red crayons and 4 blue
crayons, which one has more? The red! Great job. I think you all have learned a lot
today.

Materials and Resources:

Red and blue connecting cubes
Crayon Puzzles About More student activity worksheet
Puzzles About More worksheet
Rekenrek
Differentiation Strategies (including plans for individual learners):
Intervention: Students that need additional help will have the opportunity to work through the
problems in small groups with the teacher.
Extension: Students that have mastered the concept will be challenged to ask themselves if they
have found all of the possible solutions to the problem. They will also have the ability to work the
rest of the worksheet to further their thinking and practice.
Data Analysis:
The students were given the opportunity to have independent practice with one worksheet while
working with the people at their table. Once they worked on this worksheet, we came back
together as a class to discuss what was discovered. After the discussion, they were given a second
worksheet to work on individually. After looking at these worksheets, my conclusion with how
the lesson went was proven true. Only 2 out of the 14 students correctly completed the problems.
The majority of the class correctly chose a pair of numbers that equaled the total given number.
The majority of the students either did not correctly identify which color needed more or did not
associate colors with the numbers at all. From my observations of their work, I think I needed to
explain the problem step by step more fully. I needed to have the problem displayed where they
could look at the words and we could go through each line together. I also needed to draw
examples of our thinking on the board in the given color on the sheet. I believe doing this would
have improved some of the students learning. A majority of the students were grasping my
questions on the carpet, but they were not able to execute them on their own on paper. I believe
one more lesson more clearly explaining this concept would have given them a better
understanding of what was being asked of them. Altogether, there was not a lot of positive data
collected, but this data does show specifically what needs to be focused on further. One of the
students excelled in her work. She would need to be given more challenging problems to further
her learning and thinking.
Reflection:
After teaching this lesson, I realized just how hard it is to teach to first grade students mathematic
principles. Children must grow a sense of number, and this is not an easy concept to teach.
Beginning my lesson with reviewing what numbers make up ten was a good start to refresh their
memory. The next step that I took in my lesson was explaining the words more, less and equal.
I think this explanation and teaching segment was crucial to the students grasping the new
concept of this lesson, but I do not think I communicated the meanings of the words very well. I
needed to have more methods of informing the students of what the words meant that simply
giving examples. I should have thought of some non-examples they would have understood, and I
also should have had different methods to make sure they knew what the word meant in the
problems we were executing. I believe one thing that would have been beneficial is to project the
problem on the board and dissect the meaning of each sentence. If students knew they needed to
choose two numbers that combined to make the original number, this understanding would have
been the first step. They then needed to be able to read a sentence and recognize what the word
more actually meant in this context. I think if I spent more time making sure they understood
that concept, it would have produced further results. After breaking down the meaning of each
sentence in the problem, we then would work the problem together on the board. All of these
steps would be the I do but also the we do. I could then proceed with the rest of my lesson as
planned. A couple of things I know I would need to change about the way I presented my lesson
would be the colors of the blocks I used, writing the students thoughts on the board, and
explaining the manipulatives that were available for the students. Because these students still
need concrete examples in order to fully process and understand, I needed to have the same color
blocks that were stated in the problem. Changing colors in the middle of the lesson or simply

using different colors than what was stated in the problem was very confusing for the students.
Had I had planned ahead a little more, I would have needed to make sure colors matched each
other. Not only would the colors of the connecting cubes need to match the problems, but the
color of the markers would need to match as well. This helps the students visualize more clearly.
A second thing I needed to make sure I did when explaining the problems would be to write the
students thinking on the board. This makes the students feel like their thoughts are valuable, and
it also helps the other students in the classroom understand and contemplate their classmates
thinking. One final thing I know I needed to change when teaching my lesson was explaining the
manipulatives that were available for the students to use. Before sending them to their desks, I
needed to explain why the connecting cubes were on the tables and that they had access to use
colored markers and draw images to represent their thinking. I failed to mention that the first
time, which resulted in individual explanations throughout the classroom. Once I brought the
students back to the carpet, I remembered to say something to them before I sent them to their
tables to do their assessment. They were less confused after this explanation and able to work the
problems more fully. Overall, I did not think this problem was a disaster. Some of the students
grasped what I was teaching them, while others needed some extra help. The steps that I took to
explain these problems were not bad; they simply just needed a couple adjustments and additions.
I recognize after teaching this lesson that I need to work on my explaining skills with students
and how I execute the actually teaching portion of my lesson. I have learned a lot from actually
teaching lessons and see some of the steps I need to execute when writing further lessons.

Samford University
Design for Learning

Puzzles About More

Solve the problems. Show your work.
1. I have 9 bouncy balls.
Some of these bouncy balls are orange and
some are yellow.
I have more yellow bouncy balls.
How many of each color bouncy balls could
I have?

2. I have 7 bouncy balls.

Some of these bouncy balls are orange and
some are yellow.
I have more orange bouncy balls.
How many of each color bouncy balls could
I have?