There are countless possibilities when it comes to books that you can incorporate into your grade 1 math lesson.
I created a Grade 1 Math/Arts lesson with the book “Marilyn’s Monster” by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Matt Phelan. This is an excellent book that I highly reccommend. However, keep in mind that this concept could be applied to countless other childrens' books.
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“Marilyn’s Monster” tells the story of a girl named Marilyn and how she finally finds her monster. All of Marilyn’s classmates’ monsters find them, but Marilyn’s never comes to find her. Marilyn patiently waits for hers, but she eventually grows impatient and sets out to find him herself, despite everyone saying, “Your monster has to find you. That’s just the way it works!”. It turns out that Marilyn’s monster is stuck in a tree, and needs Marilyn’s help! Marilyn helps her monster out of the tree and returns back home with him.
I was delighted by the charming story and illustrations in this book and thought of some ways that it could be integrated into a Math/Arts lesson. I thought of a lesson that would be appropriate specifically for grades 1. One of the specific expectations in the Ontario Mathematics curriculum is for the students to “create a set in which the number of objects is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objects in a given set”. A fun way to do this would be to use the illustrations found in this book to both discuss the mathematical symbols of greater than, less than, and equal to in relation to some of the monsters found in the book. For example, the monster shown here has ‘more legs than stripes’ and ‘less horns than legs’, and his number of horns are ‘equal to’ his number of eyes.
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The teacher would examine the monsters in the book with the students, ideally through the use of an elmo projector. Alternatively, colour copies could be used. Another example of a monster illustration that could be used in this way can be found in this illustration which shows a green monster with more bumps than spots, and an equal number of tusks and antennae.
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I believe that reading this book in a grade 1 class would capture the students’ attention and get them excited about using mathematical language to describe the monsters found in the book. After the group discussion comparing the various aspects of the monsters, the students could then have the opportunity to create their own monsters using visual arts and following simple prompts.
Here are some examples of worksheets I created that can be used for this lesson:.📷📷📷📷
📷Marilyn and her monster
* Encouraging the students to draw monsters using the elements of design would integrate this lesson into the Ontario grade one Arts curriculum, as the curriculum document lists the elements of design as a fundamental concept. The grade one Arts curriculum lists these elements of design, including ‘lines that can be jagged, curved, broken, dashed, spiral, straight, wavy, or zigzag lines’ and using them to ‘illustrate different textures such as fuzzy, prickly, bumpy or, smooth’. The Ontario Arts curriculum for grade one also lists the specific expectation D1.2: ‘demonstrate an understanding of composition, using principles of design to create narrative art works or art works on a theme or topic’. This expectation can be fulfilled by having the students design their own monster.
The cross-curricular activity of creating illustrations of monsters whose body parts can be mathematically expressed would allow students to demonstrate their knowledge of the fundamental concept of Visual Arts while simultaneously demonstrating their understanding of specific expectations from the Ontario Mathematics curriculum.
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