Button Sizer

Est. Class Sessions: 1–2

Developing the Lesson

Collect and Organize Button Sizer Data. Grab a handful of buttons from the bag of buttons and ask students to brainstorm ways in which they might determine whether a button is small, medium, or large. Then display the first page of the Button Sizer pages in Student Activity Book.

Ask:

How can you use the boxes to determine the size of the buttons?

If necessary, explain that if a button does not fit inside the small box, they should see whether it fits inside the medium box. If the button does not fit inside the medium box, it is considered a large button.

Each student pair should have a bag of buttons. Direct one student in each pair to grab a handful of buttons from the bag. Pairs work together to sort the buttons by size. However, each student should record the number of buttons for each size in his or her own data table. See Figure 1. Allow students to choose their own method of recording. Some may use tally marks or draw pictures of the buttons while others may write the total number onto the table after sorting the buttons on a desktop.

Graph Button Sizer Data. Guide students as they make a graph of their data on the Button Sizer Graph. See Figure 2 for a sample graph.

Ask:

How can you tell that this is the graph that goes with your data table? (The title; across the bottom it says “size,” which is the same as the first column on the data table; it has only three vertical bars, and there are three rows of data on the data table.)
How will you label the three vertical bars? What are the three sizes? (small, medium, large)
What label should be filled in on the side? Look at the data table if you need to. (Number of Buttons)

Ask students to label the vertical axis of the graph.

Ask:

How will you decide how high to color the vertical bars? (Use the number of buttons in the Total column on the data table.)
How will the Total column help you? (Color in as many spaces as the total number.)
If you have 5 small buttons, how will you color the small button bar? (Color the bottom 5 spaces; color up to the line at 5.)

After students have completed their graphs, have pairs of students present their data tables and bar graphs to the class. Ask each pair to point out the graph’s highest and lowest bars and to summarize the results by explaining which sizes of buttons occurred most often and least often in their handful. While students are sharing their graphs, choose one graph to display and use for later discussions.

Ask students to use their graphs to figure out the total number of buttons in their handful. They should check the results with the information in their data tables. If there is a discrepancy, they should try to find the error.

Use the data table and graph on the Button Sizer pages to assess students’ abilities to sort and classify objects by their characteristics [E8] and collect and organize data in a data table and bar graph [E9].

Analyze Button Sizer Data. Display a completed Button Sizer Graph from one of the student pairs. Use the graph to solve a variety of addition and subtraction problems (e.g., join/start unknown, join/change unknown, compare/difference unknown.) Problems and responses are based on the sample graph in Figure 2.

Ask:

Are there more medium buttons or large buttons on this graph? (medium)
How many more? (9)
How do you know? What strategy did you use to find the answer? (Possible response: I counted up from the large buttons to the medium buttons on the graph.)
What is the number sentence for the problem?
(13 − 4 = 9; 4 + 9 = 13)
How would you show this problem on the number line? (Possible response: I would start at 4 and count up to 13. The answer is 9 buttons; I started at 13 and counted back 4 and landed on 9.)
If I add some buttons to the small buttons and my new number is 8, how many buttons did I add? (5) What is my number sentence? (3 + 5 = 8;
8 − 3 = 5 )
If I add the small and the large buttons, how many buttons will I have? (7) What is the number sentence? (3 + 4 = 7 )
If I double the number of large buttons, how many will I have? (8) What is the number sentence? (4 + 4 = 8 )
Look at the number of medium buttons. (13) On another graph, there were 6 fewer medium buttons. How many medium buttons are on the other graph? (7)

It is important that students experience many different types of word problems. We have included some of these problem types (e.g., join/start unknown, join/change unknown, compare/ difference unknown) in the Discussion Prompts, so that teachers present their students with a variety of problems.

Assign Questions 1–5 in the Explore section of the Button Sizer pages in the Student Activity Book. Students are asked to solve problems about their data using the table or graph. As students are working, observe their problem-solving strategies.

Ask:

How did you decide what the problem was about? (Possible responses: I drew a picture; my partner and I acted it out; I used connecting cubes to model the problem.)
What strategy did you use to solve the problem? (I counted on; I thought about making ten.)
What tools did you use? (Possible strategy: I used the number line; I used the graph.)

Ask students to share their strategies to Questions 1–5. Ask students to demonstrate the problem (e.g., act it out, show their picture) and show how they solved the problem.

Next assign Questions 6–7. Students are asked to write a problem about their data and show how to solve it. Students could write two problems and then exchange papers with their partner and solve their partner’s problems. Have connecting cubes, the 200 Chart, and Number Line 0–30 from the Student Activity Book Reference section readily available.

Adventure Book: