Three Digit Addition Fun

This week I had a really great time integrating math and social studies!

Three digit addition is usually tough for firsties, but when I combined it with holiday themed story problems and a hands on map component, my kids thought this was the best math lesson in a long time.

The first time I approached this, I just drew pictures on the board like you see above.

Most of my kids thought that was pretty cool, but some told me that they couldn’t tell the difference between the houses. Another student said…could you just make some ‘clip art ones’.  LOL!  My kids! Only they say things like…that font is hard to read..or…just get some clip art.  smh

So, that night…I went home and looked through my clip art and put this together for my kids instead! 🙂

I just taped the pictures on to the board and I made up mileage that wouldn’t go over 20 and started practicing with them again.

With my new clip art pictures and cute elf puppets, I was able to engage more of my students in the creation of the problems.  When I am teaching math, a lot of times, I just let them work on a white sheet of paper.  Like this.

I do a gradual release model.  First, I created a story problem, and I pointed out the places Rudolf went on the map, and then I placed the mileage numbers in the blanks on the board. The students helped me to add and find the sum.  Next, I handed out white sheets of paper and asked them to fold it in fours.  Four problems is usually enough for students to discover if they can be independent or if they require support.  After completing four problems together, I had them turn their papers over.  I asked them if they thought they could do some more with their table groups, or if they needed support.  Only three students asked to come to the table, the rest worked with their teams.  While they were creating problems for each other, I was working with my small group just on adding with three addends.  We discussed different strategies for approaching the math.  When that was done, I collected the papers, and discovered that all but one of my students was successful with the addition problems that they shared as a team!  It was so cool!

On the second day of instruction, we reviewed with the freshly minted clip art pieces and even my students who were unsure on Day 1 seemed to get into things much more quickly on Day 2.  In this example, a student is creating a story problem for the class and demonstrating where on the map the elf was going so that the other students could write down the addends. It is amazing how well my students are now able to articulate a true ‘story problem’!

I created a set of story problem cards to help scaffold the ‘telling’ for my students who are reading, but not well enough for the written out problems.  In this way, I could differentiate for each group.  Students could choose which problems they wanted to work with.

This next week in my centers, I have some small laminated maps for my students.  I think they are ready to try this out completely on their own!

Thanks so much for reading!

If you think this might work for your learners, try it! 🙂 I just drew the map on the board by hand.  You can see from the picture, I’m no big artist!  It got the job done though!! 🙂 If you want to just use my clip art version, click HERE.  Have a great last week with your students!