Learning About Ourselves and Our Classmates
Learning About Ourselves and Our Classmates
Objectives
Students use their curiosity to formulate questions about themselves and their immediate surroundings and to gather information to answer some of these questions. Data are collected through counting and measuring; they are sorted and classified; they are represented through pictures and graphs. Students will:
- collect data about themselves and their surroundings.
- organize data into simple bar graphs.
- sort objects using one or more attributes.
- explore various methods of data display.
Essential Questions
How can data be organized and represented to provide insight into the relationship between quantities?
How does the type of data influence the choice of display?
What does it mean to estimate or analyze numerical quantities?
What makes a tool and/or strategy appropriate for a given task?
- How can data be organized and represented to provide insight into the relationship between quantities?
- How does the type of data influence the choice of display?
Related Unit and Lesson Plans
Related Materials & Resources
The possible inclusion of commercial websites below is not an implied endorsement of their products, which are not free, and are not required for this lesson plan.
- Animal Scramble by Wild Planet Entertainment Inc. (a game of responding to clues and attributes to learn colors, animal names, and sounds)
- Animal Soup by Briarpatch (a game of identifying objects that do not match certain attributes of a set)
- Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington. Penguin Group, 2004. (a book of picking, counting, sorting, baking, and selling apples; and trying some of Annie’s recipes)
- Cat Show (All Aboard Math Reader), Vol. 1 by Jayne Harvey. Harcourt/Rigby, 2003. (a book of decisions about how to sort the cats)
- Create a Graph, free online graph-building tools:
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph
- Dave’s Down-to-Earth Rock Shop (MathStart) by Stuart J. Murphy. HarperCollins, 2000. (a book to demonstrate that objects can be sorted/organized in many different ways)
- The Great Graph Contest by Loreen Leedy. Holiday House, 2006. (a book to introduce data collection and displays)
- IXL free math practice with membership option for additional online math games http://www.ixl.com/math/grade/kindergarten/
- Let’s Graph by Lisa Trumbauer. Coughlan, 2003. (an introductory book of gathering information and using a bar graph and a pie graph)
- Let’s Sort by David Bauer. Coughlan, 2002. (a book to show sorting by color, shape, or size)
- Making Graphs by Michelle Wagner Nechaev. Gareth Stevens Pub., 2004. (a how-to book for creating graphs about everyday objects)
- Math Missions: The Race to Spectacle City Arcade Grades K-2 by Scholastic (various CD-ROM math games for Windows XP or Mac)
- Mouse Match by Fundix (a game of collecting specific colors of cheese to match the colors of each mouse’s ears)
- SET: The Computer Game by SET Enterprises (a sorting and classifying computer game for Windows 98, ME, 95, or Mac)
- Sort It Out! by Barbara Mariconda. Sylvan Dell, 2008. (a book to demonstrate sorting and stowing objects by similar attributes)
- Sorting by Henry A. Pluckrose. Scholastic Library Publishing, 1988. (a sorting book in the Math Counts Series)
- Sorting by Lynn Peppas. Crabtree, 2010. (an activity book for sorting objects)
- 3 Little Firefighters (MathStart) by Stuart J. Murphy. HarperCollins, 2003. (a book of matching sets of buttons by shape, color, and size)
- Tripoley for Kids by Cadaco (a multigame collection for sorting, matching, and swapping by attributes)
- Turn the Wheel Shapes and Sorting by Roger Priddy. St. Martin’s Press, 2004. (a sorting book for very young children)
- Wok ’n Roll by International Playthings (a game of sorting by colors as the wok turns and spins)
- Whose Shoes?: A Shoe for Every Job by Stephen R. Swinburne. Boyds Mills Press, 2010
Formative Assessment
-
View
Short-Answer Items
- Cross out the shape that does not belong.
- Sort the shapes into two groups. Draw a line from a shape to the group you think it belongs in.
- Sort the shapes again in a new way. Draw a line from a shape to the group you think it belongs in.
- How did you sort the shapes in #2? ___________________________
How did you sort the shapes in #3? ___________________________
Use the picture below to answer questions 5–8.
5. What can you name the group of shapes in Circle A?
6. What can you name the group of shapes in Circle B?
7. What can you tell about the shapes in the middle?
8. Where does this shape go? Why?
Short-Answer Key and Scoring Rubric:
- Cross out the shape that does not belong.
- Sort the shapes into two groups. Draw a line from a shape to the group you think it belongs in.
Answers will vary.
- Sort the shapes again in a new way. Draw a line from a shape to the group you think it belongs in.
Answers will vary.
- How did you sort the shapes in #2? Answers will vary.
How did you sort the shapes in #3? Answers will vary.
Use the picture below to answer questions 5–8.
5. What can you name the group of shapes in Circle A? Stars
6. What can you name the group of shapes in Circle B? Unshaded
7. What can you tell about the shapes in the middle? Unshaded Stars
8. Where does this shape go? Why?
Circle B. It is not a star and it is not shaded.
Points
Description
2
- Written or oral explanation is thorough, clear, and supported with visual representation.
- Student’s work shows complete understanding of the mathematics.
- Answer is correct.
- Student’s work meets the requirements of the problem.
1
- Written explanation is brief and is partly supported by the visual representation.
- Student’s work shows partial understanding of the mathematics.
- Answer is incorrect due to a minor mathematical error.
- Student’s work partially meets the requirements of the problem.
0
- Written explanation is brief or missing and there is no visual representation.
- Student’s work shows no understanding of the mathematics.
- Answer is missing or incorrect due to a major mathematical error/misunderstanding.
- Student’s work does not meet the requirements of the problem.
Performance Assessment:
1. Cut out the shoes. Choose seven or more to sort. Paste them into the sorting circles.
2. What is your sorting rule?
Write the name of the group above each circle.3. Draw or paste one shoe that does not fit in the sorting circles.
Tell why it does not belong.Performance Assessment Answer Key
Answers will vary greatly due to the many valid ways students may choose to sort the shoes. Make sure students understand that the way they sort the shoes must include an overlapping attribute. For example, sorting by white and gray would create two distinct sets rather than allowing for an item that would be appropriate for the middle of the diagram.
Look for mathematically sound, logical, and reasonable thought processes in student answers.
For Question 1: Possible categories of the shoes include white or gray, tennis shoes or flip-flops, regular tennis shoes or high-tops. One way that students might sort the shoes with an overlapping attribute is to place gray shoes in the left circle and flip-flops in the right circle. The result would be five gray shoes and three flip-flops, with the two gray flip-flops placed in the overlapping part of the Venn diagram.
For Question 2: Labels for the example above would be gray and flip-flops. Check that student answers match the sorting rules the students used. Note that students may need help spelling or writing the labels.
For Question 3: Answers depend on how students sorted the shoes and labeled the diagram. For the example of sorting by gray and flip-flops, students could choose a white tennis shoe to place either beside problem 3 or anywhere outside of the Venn diagram sorting circles. Students may instead choose to draw any item that is neither gray nor a flip-flop shoe. You might want to encourage students to avoid extreme answers, such as drawing an item (e.g., cat) that has nothing to do with sorting shoes.
Performance Assessment Scoring Rubric:
Points
Description
4
- Mathematics is correct with complete work shown.
- Written or oral explanations are thorough, detailed, and clear.
- Student displays advanced understanding of the questions, mathematical concepts, and processes.
- Student performs beyond the problem requirements and possibly incorporates multiple methods/solutions.
- Pictorial representation is appropriate, of excellent quality, and creative.
3
- Mathematics is correct with some work shown.
- Written or oral explanations are thorough and clear.
- Student displays good understanding of the questions, mathematical concepts, and processes.
- Student meets all problem requirements.
- Pictorial representation is appropriate, of good quality, and neat.
2
- Mathematics is correct with minimal or no work shown.
- Written or oral explanations are present but lacking some detail.
- Student displays partial understanding of the questions, mathematical concepts, and processes.
- Student meets most of the problem requirements.
- Pictorial representation is complete but may have errors.
1
- Mathematics is incorrect with some work shown.
- Written explanations are incomplete and lack detail.
- Student displays little understanding of the questions, mathematical concepts, and processes.
- Student does not meet a majority of the requirements of the problem.
- Pictorial representation is incomplete, inappropriate for the situation, or missing.
0
- Mathematics is incorrect with no work shown.
- Written explanations are illogical or not present.
- Student displays no understanding of the questions, mathematical concepts, and processes.
- Student does not meet the requirements of the problem.
- Pictorial representation is missing.
Final 3/24/14
