Lesson Plan #3
Lesson Author
First and Last Name
Author's E-mail Address
Lesson Overview
Lesson Plan Title
What’s your favorite color of the rainbow?
Open /Essential Question
What other ways can we count?
Guiding Question(s)
Lesson Summary
This lesson will reintroduce and improve student’s skills in
algebraic concepts.
Subject Area(s)
Mathematics
Grade Level
1st Grade
Student Objectives
Standards and
Benchmarks
Students will:
 Students will understand algebraic concepts and
applications.
o Add single digit numbers successfully
o Subtract single digit numbers successfully
K-4 Benchmark
A.3: Use mathematical models to represent and understand
quantitative relationships.
1.A.3.2 Describe situations that involve addition and
subtraction of whole numbers including objects, pictures,
and symbols (e.g.,
Robert has four apples, Maria has five more).
Assessment
Student Assessment
(include rubric)
Procedure
Record sheet – see below.
Step-by-step Procedure
(Includes facilitation
questions throughout the
lesson and all resources
used in the lesson)
1. Say: Who here knows the colors of the rainbow?
How many are there? What are the colors? Out of
these colors which one is your favorite?
2. Let them answer each question.
3. Say: Alright, now that we’ve all thought of our
favorite color of the rainbow I’m going to go around
with magnets of the different colors of the rainbow.
Tell me which one is your favorite and hold onto it
until everyone in the class has one.
4. Go around and pass out the different magnets.
5. Say: Ok, now I’d like for all of you whose favorite
color of the rainbow is red to come up and place
them on the blackboard in a straight line.
6. Let the ones with red magnets come up and put their
magnets on the blackboard in a straight line.
7. Say: Ok, now I’d like for all of you whose favorite
color of the rainbow is orange to come up and place
them on the blackboard in a straight line under the
line of red magnets.
8. Let the ones with orange magnets come up and put
their magnets on the blackboard in a straight line.
9. Repeat with all the colors of the rainbow until
everyone’s put theirs on the blackboard.
10. Say: What a beautiful rainbow we made ourselves!
Ok, now does anyone see a pattern with the lines on
the board? What is the pattern?
11. Let them share their answers.
12. Say: Let’s count how many magnets are in each line.
Have them count the magnets as a class.
13. Say: Which color has the most magnets? Which
color has the least magnets?
14. Let them answer questions.
15. Say: What would happen if there were more in (pick
a line depending on their graph)? What if there was
less in (pick a line depending on their graph)? How
would those things change the pattern?
16. Let them answer.
17. Say: Now that we’ve seen how we can measure and
count with magnets on the board, there’s another
way we can do the same thing but on the computer.
18. Pull up the website/Excel spreadsheet on the
projector.
19. Say: Using the program Excel we can do the same
thing we did on the board. Now, I’ll put in the
numbers that we have on the board for each color
into the right spaces in Excel.
20. Say: Now that we have all the data in there correctly
we can make a bar graph that shows the same bars
we made on the board with magnets.
21. Make the bar graph in Excel and show how it’s the
same as the bars they made with magnets.
Approximate Time Needed
for lesson
(Minutes, Days, Hours, etc)
Prerequisite Skills Needed
Materials and Resources
Required for Lesson
A single twenty-five minute class period.
None.
Magnets (that I’ll hand out).
Colors of the Rainbow
Name:__________________________
How many kids liked red?_______________________
How many kids liked orange?_____________________
How many kids liked yellow?______________________
How many kids liked green?_______________________
How many kids liked blue?_________________________
How many kids liked purple?________________________
What color did kids like the most?___________________
What color did kids like the least?___________________