Counting is more than 1,2,3!

This is a wonderful new game that occurs each day....I told the children that the greatest surprise a teacher can have is to walk in to a room of ready and happy children....SURPRISE! they've been practicing :o)

counting with a ten frame

organizing

roll and record.....

sharing a counting book with a captive audience

sharing

sharing with a sibling!

old friends

this child was interested in the cover of this book!

number bingo

helping your neighbor

This week we added to our knowledge of numbers by playing many organizing games. We chose cards and filled a ten frame, colored in number bows as we counted the dots on dice, and organized groups of numbers. We've been playing number bingo 1-20, and it's interesting to hear less and less..."what does that look like?" as the children familiarize themselves with numbers in the teens. We shared our counting books with the prek afternoon class, and they were a receptive audience as each child counted 0 through 12 and showed each page. We have also begun "taking inventories" and discussing counting in terms of order and keeping track.

Until Next Time,
Michele

KMath Heads Outdoors

collections

listen up while I tell you something important

KMath went outdoors this week to collect leaves, but with a difference. Before collecting, we each decided on a RULE for our leaf collection to follow. Some of the rules were...."all different colors" "yellow" "same shape" "same shape but different colors" .....When we came back indoors, we created posters about our rules and the leaves were ironed into waxed paper. The children shared their work with their peers and each remembered the rules!

number and color review  with a game

reviewing numbers

 Until Next Time,
Michele

Creating A Counting Book

This week we have been creating individual counting books for the numbers 0 through 12. So much counting occurs when you're creating....count out the stickers, count the cubes to color, sort your pages from 0 to 12, and look for missing pages. We hope to read our books to the PreK class when they are complete. We continue with our yes no questions for attendance ("are you the oldest child in your family?" is difficult and involves some discussion, as some children are the ONLY child in their family). We also complete the counting jar activity each day.

Until Next Time,
Michele

How Can I Sort Myself?

creating my own rules for sorting

a helping hand

a simple yes no survey to take attendance

Is my name shorter, longer, or the same size?

working together with  blocks

making up a rule for sorting

why are these things all together?

This week we looked at sorting by at least one atttribute again, but we sorted ourselves. The children were able to come up with a "rule" for sorting, and group their peers according to their rule, then let their peers guess. There were some very original thinkers for this game! We wrote the number THREE this week in practice and began to put together our writing  numbers books, and read counting books to get some ideas about pages for our own number and counting books next week. A favorite game involved comparing our own name towers to others, and writing the names according to "same", "shorter" and "longer".

Until Next Time,
Michele

Attributes and Comparisons

Where does your name go?

self portraits:  how am I the same, how am I different?

more comparisons

sorting with a rule

something longer, something shorter, than my name

attribute cards

different ways of building

how many letters are in my name?

 

Our Kindergarten Math this week began to look at attributes as well as comparisons. The children are very accomplished at finding something that matches by at least one attribute, be it color, shape, size, etc. We read the book Chrysanthemum to find out what it meant to be a little bit different, as well as compare our own names to Chrysanthemum's name. We play games now, finding names in the room that are longer or shorter or the same size as ours and keeping track. Some children even explored attribute cards, matching blocks to the attribute card, thin, thick, red, yellow, etc. The counting jar is in operation, and we have counted all the way up to 30 with the calendar.

Until Next Time,
Michele

Building On The Routine....

The K Mathematicians have begun to formalize their free play choices as they are learning some new rules to games.  This week we learned about matching by at least one attribute, and so the buttons looked a little more organized when they were worked with. We added a calendar to our welcome routine, and so have the chance to count each day and talk about numbers before and after.  Our attendance routine looks a little bit different, as we are constructing a cube tower to show how many children are here today. We added an independent activity, the Counting Jar, which allows children to count how many in the jar and record their count independently. We wrote the number "2" and also wrote in our journals at the end of the week. We are getting comfortable with our math routines and expectations, and  getting a little challenged!
Until Next Time,
Michele

Welcome to Kindergarten Math 2011/2012

Kindergarten Math has just begun! We shared a week of getting used to our "routine" for math; Circle at which we take attendance and practice counting, Activity which is a time for instruction in math, reading a book, or playing a game, Math Workshop during which the children make choices of different math activities, and Check In, when we come back together as a group and perhaps show our work, talk about what we've noticed, or play a game. This week we practiced some games and number recognition, and counted off to take attendance each day. The children engaged in long stretches of free play with math manipulatives as they familiarized themselves with the attributes of the different materials, and we shared many counting and number books together. We made a bulletin board of pages to illustrate what 10 YELLOW DOTS could be, and the pictures produced were very creative and sometimes included many more dots than 10!
These pictures illustrate one of our activities on Thursdays, which will be recollecting what we learned in math this week, and drawing pictures or writing words in a journal. There will be a message in each journal from me regarding our week.

Until Next Time,
Michele