More Apples? Are you kidding? And…a Writer’s Workshop Tools Anchor Chart

What else is more fall than apples?  This post has ideas for graphing and making a brace map for parts of the apple. Be sure and read all the way to the bottom to snag a freebee!.

Can you believe that there is even more apple stuff!?  Yesterdays post, in case you didn’t get a chance to read it, was about some of the things I did in Megan’s room last Friday. Here are some more things that I did: A few days before I came, Megan’s kids tasted red, yellow and green apples. Then, she gave them an apple cut out to color red, yellow or green depending on which one they liked the best. She put those aside and saved them until Friday. We then used those apples to make a pie graph. As we were building the graph, the math talk was so much fun. Each time we added another apple to the graph, we talked about how our data changed. They were so good at comparing the sets that I decided to push it further. So I had them get out their white boards.
It sounded like this:
So how many people liked red apples? (7) Let’s write the number on our dry erase boards.
How many people liked green apples? (7) Let’s write that number on our board, here. (I demonstrated writing it beside the other 7.)
What can you tell me about these two groups when we compare them? (equal)So I was wondering if there was a special sign we could use to show that they were equal?
We continued to compare other numbers! They were so good at it and caught right on to the greater than and less than signs.
Finally, I wanted to ask a few higher order questions. So I asked:
Do I need to buy any yellow apples since they are the least? Why?
What can you tell me about what I should buy?
If I have 3 bags, how should I sort the apples in the bags? (by color, share the weight, …..)
Next, we did the apple brace map. It was their first time using a brace map so I wanted to be sure they knew what one was for. So I took a puzzle that I had put together. I showed them the whole puzzle, then I dumped out the tray and we talked about how it was the same puzzle, just in parts. We had all the parts to make the puzzle. That’s what a brace map is!
Then, I used a real apple to cut the various parts. I used interactive writing to stretch out the words. I connected back to what they were doing that morning during writer’s workshop—stretching out words. I invited them up to help me write the dominant and I filled in the rest. Look at the photo below on the right, she didn’t know how to write a letter. So I was showing her how good writers use their tools—in this case the word wall. We looked up there to find how to write the letter.While I was writing the words on the big brace map, they each had their own brace map and were writing the words as we stretched them out. We also drew a picture by each part and drew arrows to make them labels. Megan painted their hands during center time to make the handprint apple.Here is the finished product hanging in the hall! Both of these ideas are from the Apples and Pumpkins Math and Literacy Activities Unit.
Speaking of using our tools….here is one of Megan’s anchor charts for writer’s workshop. Scroll to the bottom to snag this FREE Writer's Tool Anchor Chart.