Amazing Attributes

This afternoon I had one of those great teaching moments.  I am so glad I thought to grab a camera midway through!  The only thing better would have been to video it.  There was so much good "math talk" and "aha!" moments in this lesson. 

My kids are working on sorting by attributes.  Yesterday we talked about comparing two buttons that were alike and different, and explaining why.  Today I extended the lesson to have them use multiple buttons to really solidify the vocabulary I want them to be using.  (Many were still saying "same" for "alike.) 

As I was working with my first group, they were getting the hang of it easily and so I was thinking about how I could challenge my next group, the high flyers. 

(You know how that goes right? You can teach a small group while simultaneously thinking about your next lesson, the upcoming parent meeting, scanning the room for those off task, shushing loud voices, writing a nurse pass and talking to the secretary who walked in, right?) 

Anyway, to go along with my goal of having them work together more often, it started with the idea of giving them a small basket of buttons to sort with a partner, and then have them explain to their partner why they sorted them into groups. And suddenly it occurred to me to draw different numbers of circles on the table to have them sort the same buttons various ways.  I told them they had to come up with a "rule" for each circle. 

We got started with just two groups.  Two little girls were quickly sorting by "squares and circles" and got to the bottom of the basket and found two triangles!  They said "Let's just leave them out."  :)  Most partners ended up doing "same color, different color." Here is where it got interesting. One pair had stacked buttons WITHIN a circle by the number of buttonholes.  They had various stacks of buttons with two holes and stacks with four holes and told me that was how they sorted them.

I don't have a picture of the "two group" buttons, but I asked the student "If your rule is two-hole buttons, then why are the four-hole buttons in the same circle?  Do you think it belongs there?"  He looked puzzled, and then the "OH!!" moment came.  He explained to his partner, and they quickly sorted them into just two groups. 

I then told the kids I was going to challenge them.  Their faces got excited when I drew three (THREE!) circles in front of them. 

 

I was expecting them to pick it up easily by now, but they didn't!  Again, most did "one color, another color, other colors."

 

 

 

 

These are my two highest students.  They gave me puzzled looks when I asked them to explain how they were sorting and said "We need some more time."  It was interesting, because they realized the color sorting wasn't quite right, and were trying other combinations.  They finally realized they could sort by shape! 

 

 

 

 

For the record, there are only three shapes in all of the baskets.  :)  But no one seemed to pick up on that at first. 

 

 

More colors...

 

Then, we tried four circles. 

 

Now we could do colors more appropriately.  :) 

I wish you could have heard the math talk going on around the table, as they discussed how to group their buttons and which particular buttons belonged in which groups.  I also wish you could see their excited, engaged faces.  Something about providing the boundary of the circles and increasing them one at a time made it really exciting. 

One student even said we needed eight circles so we could do two rules...number of buttonholes AND colors.  (!!!) 

Before I knew it, we were wayyyy over our small group time, and they begged me to do this again tomorrow.  So we will, and I'll try it with my other groups too. 

I'm still waiting for them to realize that there are also two sizes of shapes; large and small.  :)