Introduction to the MAISA Michigan K-12 Standards for Mathematics Curriculum Materials

The curriculum materials are designed to:

• be professional learning tools to improve educators’ understanding of the Michigan K-12 Standards for Mathematics;
• organize the Michigan K-12 Standards for Mathematics into mathematically coherent and sequenced units of study that make visible connections among mathematical ideas. They are not designed to prescribe a single pathway through a particular unit; and
• provide a context for conversations among colleagues (e.g., Professional Learning Communities) within and across grades. Lesson and assessment topics within the units of study are selected to highlight content that might be new, different, or challenging for teachers and students. This highlighted content may be used to spark important planning and problem solving discussions related to the Michigan K-12 Standards for Mathematics implementation.

**Please read the following attachment addressing FAQs before using the MAISA Michigan K-12 Standards for MathematicsI Mathematics Units **

First Grade Overview

In first grade, students continue to learn to use mathematics as a means to describe and make sense of the world around them. Students do this, in part, by learning to use a variety of representations (e.g., concrete manipulatives, drawings, story contexts, etc.) to help them solve mathematical problems, including those with real world contexts. Over time, they learn to use these representations, as well as others including data displays, to communicate their mathematical reasoning to others. Eventually students begin to listen to one another's ideas in order to add on to, revise, or clarify thinking.

Much of students’ learning at this grade is centered on the ideas of composing and decomposing numbers and shapes. Students use composing and decomposing to make sense of and develop fluency with the mathematics described in the first grade standards. As students continue to learn to count they are expected to use their developing knowledge of place value, including recognition that the two digits of a two digit number represent amounts of ones and tens. Related to this, students write given 2-digit numbers in multiple ways, including a variety of equivalent expressions, and learn to use the equal sign to communicate the expressions are equivalent. A critical component of this year is that students learn to make sense of what numbers are and how they are used to solve problems using the relationship between addition and subtraction and properties of operations. As such, it is important for adults supporting first graders’ learning of these standards to recognize that determining the correct answer to a given addition/subtraction problem is part of the learning process but not the only goal.

Just as first grade students compose and decompose numbers they also compose and decompose 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes. Their exploration of shape, which includes “breaking apart“ and “putting together”, supports students understanding of fractions and measurement concepts such as area and perimeter in later grades. As in all mathematics courses, the Standards for Mathematical Practice are the “processes and proficiencies” by which all other mathematics standards are taught.

Rationale

The foundation for children's mathematical development is established in the earliest years. Mathematics learning builds on the curiosity and enthusiasm of children and grows naturally from their experiences. Mathematics at this age, if appropriately connected to a child's world, is more than "getting ready" for school or accelerating them into elementary arithmetic. Appropriate mathematical experiences challenge young children to explore ideas related to patterns, shapes, numbers, and space with increasing sophistication. (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000, p. 73).

Scope and Sequence

Careful thought has been given to the order in which the units are presented. Certain scaffolds have been created based on this order and schools should take care in moving units from their intended placement in the curriculum. For example, Unit 1 (strategy development) and Unit 2 (making sense of problems with unknowns) include work grounded primarily in single digit addition and subtraction. The context for Unit 3 is measurement. However, as students learn what measurement is and how to measure, they solve measurement problems involving numbers and problem structures similar to those they experienced in the earlier units. Connections among these ideas are then extended to the context of data in Unit 4. In this unit, students collect and analyze several types of data, including measurement data. And, they use their representations of data to answer problems as they continue to learn to add, subtract, and compare numbers. The year culminates with a geometry unit and two more number units. The geometry unit builds upon ideas developed in Unit 3 (measurement). In the later number units, students have continued opportunities to solve problems involving addition and subtraction as the size of the numbers they use increases prompting an attentiveness to place value and equivalence. As always, when selecting an appropriate sequence for a particular mathematics course it is helpful to also consider the order of the content within your district’s primary instructional resource.

Alignment

This course is aligned to the Michigan K-12 Standards for Mathematics.