Graphic organizer Grade 1 Math
Burdock Pond Cleanup: A Grade 1 Part-Part-Whole Frame
A grade 1 part-part-whole organizer for litter-bag word problems, with a labeled frame for the two parts, the whole, the number sentence, and the answer.
Objectives
- Students will place the two parts and the whole of a word problem into a labeled frame.
- Students will mark the unknown quantity with a question mark before solving.
- Students will write a number sentence that matches the frame they filled.
Vocabulary
Key words: part, whole, number sentence, litter, pond
Teacher overview
This organizer is a part-part-whole frame, a three-slot structure in which two smaller amounts sit side by side and the amount they make together sits in a third slot, with two extra slots for the number sentence and the answer. It is built here around a cleanup day at Burdock Pond, a made-up pond behind a school where two groups of children collect bags of litter that blew in from the parking lot. The frame exists because first graders often decide whether to add or subtract from a single word rather than from the structure of the story, and sorting the numbers into parts and a whole makes that structure visible before any arithmetic starts. The same frame handles a story that joins two groups and a story that takes some bags away, which is the point worth making when the class compares the three finished rows.
Organizer
Read each problem. Fill one row of the frame. Write a question mark in the box you do not know.
| Problem | Part | Part | Whole | Number sentence | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||||
| 2 | |||||
| 3 |
Here are the three problems.
- The blue group filled 7 bags. The red group filled 6 bags. How many bags in all?
- The two groups filled 15 bags in all. The blue group filled 8 bags. How many bags did the red group fill?
- There were 14 bags by the gate. A truck took away 9 bags. How many bags are left?
Word bank for the number sentence column: plus, minus, equals, question mark.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
This is the finished frame for the three Burdock Pond problems.
| Problem | Part | Part | Whole | Number sentence | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7 bags | 6 bags | ? | 7 + 6 = ? | 13 bags |
| 2 | 8 bags | ? | 15 bags | 8 + ? = 15 | 7 bags |
| 3 | 9 bags | ? | 14 bags | 9 + ? = 14 | 5 bags |
Three things are worth checking when you look at student frames. In row 1 the question mark belongs in the Whole column, because the two parts are known and the total is not, while in rows 2 and 3 the question mark belongs in a Part column, because the total is already given. A student who wrote 15 in a Part box for row 2 has read the total as one of the groups and should be sent back to the story. Row 3 is worth a short class conversation on its own, since the story sounds like taking away yet the frame holds the same three slots as row 1, with 14 as the whole and 9 as one part. Accept a subtraction sentence in the row 3 number-sentence box as well, because a student who writes the take-away form has placed the same whole and the same known part.
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a frame with the Part and Whole boxes already filled for problem 1 so their only task is placing the question mark and writing the number sentence. Read each problem aloud twice and let them build the parts with counters before writing.
Extension
Ask these students to write a fourth cleanup problem of their own in which the unknown sits in a Part box, fill a new row of the frame for it, and trade with a partner who has to name where the question mark goes before solving.
ELL supports
Post the words "part," "part," and "whole" above three drawn boxes with the two small boxes feeding into the larger one, and point to that picture each time the words are used. Provide the frame "___ and ___ make ___" and allow students to say it aloud with counters before filling the row.
Extensions
Bring the frame back the next time the class collects anything countable, such as returnable bottles or recycled paper, and fill one row from the real counts so students see the same structure outside a printed problem.