Adding, Subtracting & Graphing

For many many weeks my 2nd grade class has been learning how to add, subtract and make a bar graph. At first students seem to have no problem counting on their fingers, but when addens and sums become more than 10, fingers don't come in as handy any more. Over these past few months we have used cubes that can be locked together, number lines/yardsticks and 100's charts. At first all the children love to use the cubes and connect them together. After awhile it becomes cumbersome, especially with much larger numbers. Also some children tend to get confused with going from right to left and jumping down a line on the 100's Chart every 10 numbers. So far the straight number line/yardstick seems to be the best tool. Though some of my ESOL/Sped students still tend to count the number where they place their finger when starting. An issue I am grappling with. Once I nudge them along though and as long as they don't lose their place while counting along they tend to manage.

With graphing we have pulled the color cubes out again and have the children build towers for who likes what and how many like the same thing. For example, we list some toys up on the board and students raise their hand indicating which is their favorite. They then build a tower of cubes corresponding to a particular toy. We have had students write down on sticky notes numbers of teeth lost and even pockets possessed on that day's attire and then have them proceed to build their towers.

At this age manipulatives and other hand held tools, such as blocks, cubes or yardsticks really help in understanding the foundations of math. It also is a start for students to put key words/phrases such as "all the students" and "how many/much more would you need", etc. together in order to see, understand and interpret correctly the gist of a word problem.