taking inventory

 We started the week by playing a "base ten" memory game, in which the children learned how to make sense of a number by breaking it up into logical pieces.  We learned why, and how, to take an inventory. The children counted up a number of fall items and created a poster together that showed the count. For free choice we took inventory using bags of items, wrote the number 4, and continued to use math manipulatives.
Until Next Time,
Michele

how many are hiding?

each child had a particular group to count up

focusing on the count

representing the count

writing the number 4.

Games to Learn By

And now we've started playing games to practice our counting and number skills. We are also making our own counting books 0-6. We'll share our finished counting books with the prek classes.  When we play like this we're motivated to know more, and we become experts!

number bow...color in the number that you roll

grab and count and show your count

creating a counting book

counting jar

survey questions

attributes

answering a question with a clothespin

This week we looked at sorting by attributes...ourselves, buttons, and attribute blocks. The children answered "yes" "no" questions about themselves, and put their name to a question that matched.  We drew self portraits, and sorted by them;  what's one thing about my picture that's the same as someone else's? what's one thing that's different? By learning about attributes, we are looking more closely at our environment and strengthening our math thinking and reasoning skills, as well as learning how to talk about what we notice.
We continued to have time to explore freely materials that we will be using later in a more formal manner.

sneakers

not sneakers!

how shall we sort ourselves?

self portrait

 how am I the same? how am I different?

More About Numbers!

taking attendance

the counting jar

making the number 2

attributes of a button

The kindergarteners continued to spend time exploring materials that will be used more formally in the near future. We talked about attributes, tried to make and write the number two, and at the end of the week tried our hand at journals.  We were introduced to an independent counting activity, the counting jar.

Until Next Time,
Michele

Counting is More Than 1,2,3, and How We Begin....

 Group Photo number 1. I'm not sure about the number 1, but I do know that kindergartners love having their own math group. At the beginning and then throughout our kindergarten year, we are given many opportunities to play freely with materials that will later be used more formally in games and math activities. We take attendance and count how many are here, absent, and how many should be here altogether.





These are our math "dreams" for this year. We might revisit them to see how we're doing in making our dreams come true!

free choice with pattern blocks

geo blocks

marker table

 We often look at books, like Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews, and then make our own pages, in this case with 10 black dots each.

buttons to sort or just look at

geoblocks

pattern blocks galore!

more focus on pattern blocks

Until Next Time,
Michele