Hi again!
I’m so excited watching our Kindergarteners learn math. As we start diving deep into our first math unit, students are developing their mathematical skills with a focus on the counting sequence to 20 and quantities to 10. With our daily Number Corner, students are exploring shape/color patterns, sequencing numbers and getting a lot of practice with one-to-one correspondence (counting each object in a collection, once and only once). We’ve also been building our subitizing skills, which is the ability to recognize a quantity without counting. The students love playing the “Numbers Flash” game, where I will show them a five-frame with a certain amount of dots showing and they have to instantly recognize how many dots I am showing within a couple seconds. I encourage you to continue to provide your child practice subitizing. At home or at the store, provide your child with opportunities to quickly recognize quantities (up to 10) - especially 5 and 10. Some example questions you might ask your child at home:
As we tackle the habit of Persistence, our Kindergarten mathematicians practice this habit through showing resilience when a problem is hard. They also demonstrate their ability to manage their impulsivity by providing one another with think time. I’m proud of their growth when it comes to giving everyone a chance to learn. We also read together The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes by Mark Pett. As Kate and I try to encourage in our classroom, mistakes are a part of learning. In this book, Beatrice was known for being perfect so much to the point that she lived in constant fear that she would inevitably make a mistake. When she finally did, she realized it was not the end of the world. Even more, she found joy and creativity when she no longer felt confined to the idea of perfection meaning “one way.” I want students to be flexible learners, to value their strategies and methods and to value the idea of struggle. When a problem is extra difficult, I remind the students, “When it feels tough, that means your brain is learning.” I encourage you to have these conversations with your child about the value of persistence and resiliency, too!
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We’re off to an incredible start! I’m having so much fun with our kiddos for math. We have such a dynamic group full of creativity and eagerness to learn. In just a few days, they are already showing me their potential. This week, we discussed how the classroom was a great place to manage our impulsivity, our current Habit of Mind focus. It’s HARD to stay focused all day long! Yet, our students are learning how we can learn to keep ourselves focused so that we can be our best!
On top of learning expectations and procedures in Kindergarten this week, students engaged in a read aloud of Missing Math: A Number Mystery by Loreen Leedy. This sparked their curiosity and provided us the space to ask, what would life be like without math? Help make it concrete to them by honing in on specifics: what would life be like without numbers, shapes, measurement tools, money, etc. This week, we also started our first unit in math. In this unit, students will count to 20 and recognize and build sets of 10 using five-frames and ten-frames and objects. Later in this unit, students will start to order and compare numbers and write their numerals to 10. They explore numbers, shapes and patterns by playing at "Work Places." As an addition to our Number Corner portion of our curriculum, students will be participating in “100 Acts of Kindness.” As we count every day we are in school and look forward to the “100th” day, students will take turns sharing their act of kindness for the day. We will record our acts and display them in the back of our classroom as a reminder that there is always room for kindness every moment of every day! |
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June 2016
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