More of what is great about math, numbers and practice, identifying numbers through 30 (we could all use some practice), discovering patterns, and reading books about a million and what a million would look like. We shared a cookie activity with the first graders and graphed the results of taking the first bite of a cookie.
and it has 15 letters, if you count them up! The children enjoyed listening to the story of Rumpelstiltskin, and then worked to write their own names in cube towers for some comparing of lengths, numbers, and letters. There were many insights and interesting questions, as well as interest in working with others.
We've begun a new unit, and we'll be practicing our observational skills, and our discussion skills, as well as noticing skills. The children took a walk through the school, having discussed beforehand that they might look very closely, and sketch what they see, so that they might share their observations with the group. We were very quiet as we walked through the halls, and we noticed a lot of shapes, words, artwork, and patterns. Some of the children wrote words for their observations, some of them sketched shapes and then pointed to their sketches as they described what they had seen, and some combined their writing and sketching skills to create pages of what they had seen. We introduced a new game called "what's missing" which required memory and turn taking. It was difficult when 2 items were hidden at once! Finally, we've completed our number writing book, having written the numbers 1-10. Celebrate 10!
The children added some new math games to their repertoire this week, grabbing and counting amounts and showing their work, rolling dice and coloring in corresponding numbers, and using a "ten frame" to count numbers that they had rolled. There was a lot of interest and enthusiasm for game playing! It was interesting to watch the progression of number recognition; suddenly six dots became "6!" and that number was colored on the page. We finished writing our number books and the children shared them with eachother. Finally, we practiced writing the number 9, which, we discovered, starts in its own corner.
The K's began playing games this week in math. We rolled dice and colored columns of numbers, grabbed and counted how many we had grabbed, and continued to construct our counting books. The counting jar continues to be a choice every day, and the children are independent in completing the activity. Our yes no question survey gives us a lot of data, as you can see by the picture! That's me, I'm the only one who was wearing a watch :o)
Now that we are getting to be experienced counting kindergartners, we are constructing a counting book to show what we know. The children have been provided with a variety of materials including paint, stamps, stickers, markers, pencils, and pages numbered 0 through 12. There is a challenge to keep pages together and ordered as well as showing a representation of each number. The finished products will certainly be colorful!
We played a game called attribute block matching and the children were able to use visual cues to match the blocks by one attribute. An curious twist happened with one pair of children...the "big" card was covered by a "big" pile of attribute blocks of all sizes and colors. Interesting thinking!
