In our second lesson of the capstone unit the objective is, “By the end of this lesson students will be able to define addition as adding on and identify whether or not a problem involves adding or taking away.” At the end of this lesson I will assess students on whether or not they are able to correctly sort problems into boxes based on whether the problem involves adding on or taking away. This assessment will show if students are able to identify whether problems involve adding or taking away. Earlier in the lesson students will listen to a story about addition and use tens frames and unifix cubes to keep track of the addition in the story. In the previous lesson the students will have listened to a story about taking away. At the end of the story we will compare the two and identify which story was about adding and which one was able taking away. My students have been very successful in math so far this semester. They are consistently engaged and correct throughout our math lessons. They have all been successful in using tens frames and unifix cubes. Students have sorted before but never in this way so I will need to model the task explicitly before they start. Some students have IEPs focused on speech and other students are emerging bilinguals. This is why the task and assessment can be done with and without speaking. This way every student can show their knowledge and no one is excluded. The cognitive demand of this task is high. Students are listening to real world problems and sorting them into adding on and taking away. This is the first step of solving word problems and they will use this skill in the future. In the context of the lesson students are helping butterflies which gives the task a connection to them personally. This task involves listening to problems and analyzing them to see if they are adding or taking away problems. There is not a large demand for students to speak but I will ask them questions as they make their choice and monitor the language they use.

Some of my favorite resources for kindergarten and first grade are:

https://www.youtube.com/@JackHartmann For brain breaks and educational songs

https://www.youtube.com/@TheMindfulnessTeacher BEST MINDFULNESS EXERCISES EVER 

https://www.abcya.com/ Fun computer games to use as a reward

Not a resource but buy a million clear sheet protectors and have students trace their names, numbers, letters, and everything else you want them to be able to write. Let them practice anytime they finish something early.