Picture It-4GT

grade 4gt Mathematics Routine

Picture It

Standards:  Mathematical Practice #1, #2, and #3

In this routine, students think mathematically about the world around them. Students might notice patterns or numbers within pictures. The student might estimate the number of items in an image. Or students might ask mathematical questions about the picture.  It comes from Daily Routines to Jumpstart Math Class (Corwin, 2019).

DIRECTIONS:

1.  Students come to the front of the room.  They may need a writing utensil, sticky notes, whiteboard, or paper . This depends on the picture.

2.  Display the picture.  Give students some time to examine it.

3.  Pose a question about the picture.  It can be specific about the picture and/or it can be one of the following generic questions.  

4. Give students a chance to determine an answer to your questions.  Then have them turn and talk to a partner about their answer and strategy for finding the answer.

5.  Bring the class back together and share solutions.  Ask students to share their reasoning as well.  

6.  Some questions you might ask:

• • How did you think about the picture?
  • Are there any unknowns that you can't answer from the picture?
  • What assumptions did you have to make?  Why?
  • What is a reasonable answer?
  • What would be a completely unreasonable solution?  Why?

EXAMPLES:

Students might be asked to estimate how many cookies are on the plate. They could be told that a cookie is 100 calories and then asked how many calories are on the plate. Another estimation example is to ask about how many chocolate chips are on the plate. Students might deduce the number of chips by finding the number of chips in one cookie and then thinking about how many cookies are on the plate. Students could also be asked for numbers that are too high or too low.

Students might be asked about how many birds are there, how many legs are there or are there more or less than 10, 20, 50, or 100 birds.

In other cases, students might be asked how many people can ride the Ferris wheel. In this example, students have to make some decisions about the possible number of people per car and the number of cars on the wheel.

VIDEO:

Notice that the teacher asked the students to think about how they see math in the picture. He recorded all student responses and asked students questions to further deepen their reasoning. The teacher made connections between ideas. He asked students to estimate and provided ample wait time. Students were encouraged to use the thumbs up symbol when they arrived at an estimate. There was an emphasis on using math vocabulary and identifying the strategy used such as repeated addition.

GOOGLE SLIDES: Picture It Links to an external site.

These 19 slides each have an image and a question(s) to enable students to think mathematically about the world around them.