Nguyen, Thaihoa

November 4, 2014
MIAA 350 Reflection # 2

First Grade: Doubles Plus 2

The first grade teacher did a lesson on Doubles Plus 2. I was very excited when she told
me she was doing this lesson because this was one of the lecture notes we learned in our MIAA
350 class. She started the class out by reviewing yesterdays lessons. She tells her students to
make sure their doubles towers should have the same number of cubes and their towers should be
the same size. She uses whiteboards, linking cubes, sentence frames, technology with the
envision bridge, and students worksheets.
She demonstrates what doubles look like on the board for the students, and then she
asked them to go ahead and copy hers. She then she introduces the lesson and says, We learned
Doubles Plus 1 yesterday, where we had a double and added one. So what would Doubles Plus 2
look like? She tells students to think first and then tell their partners at their tables how they
would do it. As first grader teacher, she modeled a lot of thinking out loud for the students.
During the process to get students there, she had to go back to yesterdays lesson several times of
Doubles Plus 1.
She walked around to make sure that the students get the concepts that when you make
Doubles Plus 2 that they are not adding two more to both towers. I want to make a Doubles
Plus 2, do I add two to both of my towers of or just two more? I saw many of the students
added two to each of their towers. The teacher indicated to the students, If you added two more
to each tower, it is now a Doubles and not a Doubles Plus 2. I understood why it was so
important to questioned her students, Is that a Doubles Plus 2 or is it Doubles? Look at your
towers again? I have a doubles plus two. I am not taking away, so I plus two. Thats when
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students realized that they needed to add just two more cubes to one of their tower, because if
they added two to each towers it becomes Doubles.
I loved how she stated that five is her favorite Doubles because she has five fingers here
and five fingers on her other hand which makes ten. She goes on and keeps asking questions to
her students, Is there an easier way or a longer way to do this? Asking students how would
they add five plus seven? She tells students to put ten in their head and then count 2 more, where
they ended up with twelve. Then students referred back to their towers they already constructed
with five as their doubles plus two. They counted each individual cubes and saw they got the
same answer as they did before counting them. They went on and continue with making six,
seven, eight, and nine Doubles Plus 2. She had students did a lot of pair sharing and she made
them read what they have in front of them as they constructed their towers and writing them
down.
They watched the visional bridge which is the technology part of the lesson. The video
asked, What other numbers do you know are two apart? Teacher instructed students to go
ahead and have both hands in front of them. Have two fingers on hand and two fingers on the
other hand. Then add two more to one of their hands. How do you solve a Doubles Plus 2
facts? After each questions asked, teacher stopped and instruct students to follow along.
Here is where I see the concept of Doubles Plus 2 comes in. Which is less, six or
eight? It teaches students that if you know a number that is less than two to another number,
that you use the Doubles Plus 2 to quickly get your answer. So in the case of six plus eight,
students needed to understand that six is the lesser number and that the difference between the
two numbers is two. Students learned doubles of six which is twelve and add two more which is

fourteen. This works for student if they know their Doubles, and that they know the facts are two
apart.
At the beginning of the lesson, I can see how it can be confusing for first graders. What if
we called it Doubles and Plus Two More? The Doubles Plus 2 phase would throw an English
Learner a bit of. What I would have done to this lesson, is used same color cubes to make the
doubles and the plus two a different color for the students to visual see the difference between
two being added to one of the Doubles tower.
Its really amazing to see that this is how students are taught to do additional facts. I dont
recall that this was taught to me in grade school. I know with more practice each day, they start
to memorize it like multiplication. I still see middle school students count with their fingers
doing simple addition. Makes you wonder if they were very taught Doubles Plus 2.