Graphing In Kindergarten - YOU BET!

Casey teaches in a full day kindergarten class.  She had been at her daughter's school and saw a great idea for a bulletin board and decided to give it a try with her kindergarten class.  (I like to call that "educational shoplifting" :)

She asked her students the question of "How Many People Are in Your Family?"  Instead of having them complete the graph on chart paper, she gave each student a small paper plate.  On the plate they drew the people in their family.  By using the paper plate it allowed her the opportunity to keep the drawings all the same size.  This really made it easy for the students to compare the different sizes of their families as they were able to count the plates to help determine how many people are in each type of family.  (e.g, More students have 5 people in their family.  9 friends have 4 people in their family)  With 29 students it makes for a full bulletin board!

Kindergarten Science and Math Connection

In Adrienne's kindergarten class they have been learning a great deal about seeds and what they do for plants and humans.  It is the basis of the classroom inquiry project that her children have been exploring about.  As they move through this inquiry, they are also beginning to learn about graphing and sorting as they are covering Data Management right now.  

At one of her centres Adrienne created a t-chart with two headings "Seeds" and "No Seeds"  Using flyers from local grocery stores the children cut out different objects and place them under the correct heading.  Not only were they sorting objects into two groups they were deepening their knowledge about what things have seeds and what don't and also working on their fine motor skills by cutting.

Kindergarten Planning

The Kindergarten Team at Wexford had a planning day where they spent the morning working on Math and the afternoon working on Language.  It was the full team - Teachers and ECE's - which was great because everyone had some great ideas and suggestions as to what they wanted to see done in their next school year.

The team decided to follow the long range plans that they received at the last Kindergarten PLC.  They also wanted to plan their unit using the template that was shared with them for the Patterning and Algebra expectations.  They focused on planning around the Number Sense and Numeration expectations that "go along" with the specific Patterning expectations.

They started by creating their Learning Goals for the unit.  In this case they ended up being:  

* The number of things I count, is the number of things I say;
* I can choose where I want to start counting;
* When I count I always start at the number 1.

They then created a diagnostic/ending  assessment (which will be done orally) for the children to do.  But they didn't want it to seem out of context so they pulled in the book "Good Night Gorilla" to help them make the diagnostic a bit more "fun".  The discussion they had around it was really rich as it allowed them to predict what answers the children might give, but also discuss about what they would expect to see the children say and do at the end of the unit.  They also discussed what the prompt would be for students who need one (you can see it in the picture labelled with a "P").

Now that they had the beginning and the ending figured out, they then planned what they were going to do "in the middle" to help their children be successful at the end.  They discussed, debated, and deliberated possible activities - all keeping the expectations in mind to make sure they were not going too far off the rails.  They were able to pull in some more literature connections (Ten Black Dots, Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom,) and also discuss what they would do in both the large group and the small group settings.



Overall, it was a great morning - and the best part is, they are pretty well planned (math wise) until November!  Super work team!

Problem Solving In Kindergarten

In Artemis' Full Day kindergarten class, her students were given the opportunity to problem solve - and connect that problem to a larger school wide issue. The school had adopted 6 families for the holiday season.  Students and their families were asked to donate clothing, food and personal items to help support the cause. 

For the minds on part of her three part lesson, Artemis read the students the book "The Jacket I Wear In The Snow" to get the students thinking about items you need for winter.  The problem (action) that Artemis gave her students was this:  We've been collecting clothing for families in need.  We can put ten things in each box we give them.  We are going to make boxes of hats and mittens.  What combinations of hats and mittens could you put in a box?

The students did a wonderful job of creating various boxes with different combinations of hats and mittens.  As they worked, Artemis was able to record not only the combinations that they made (e.g., 4 hats and 6 mittens) how they counted (was it one-on-one, did they count by 2s?) and probe them to explain their thinking (How do you know you are done?  Why do you think you have put ten things in the box?).

To finish off the lesson, (consolidate) the students came back to the carpet and recorded their boxes on a chart.  Artemis then continued to ask questions about the boxes that the students made.  (Who had more mittens in their box?  Alyssa or Shiva?  How do you know?)

Welcome To Kindergarten Night

This past week I was invited to be a part of General Crerar's Welcome to Kindergarten night. The principal (Heather) and the kindergarten teacher (Chris) had set up several stations for parents to visit. These stations were: Math, Public Health, Toronto Public Library, and a Teacher station where Chris had some activities set up for them to do with her.

The math station consisted of two games for parents to play with their children: Part, part whole bingo and a shake and spill game using the 10 frame mat.

 
 
Each child also got a "math goodie bag" which had the two games in it, plus a few other math items for them to use at home.  The bags cost under $1 per child, and were made up of items that were purchased at a local dollar store.  The items in the bag were:  A deck of cards, 10 two sided counters, a large die, stickers, part-part-whole bingo game, a ten frame, a piece of sewing elastic (to make shapes with) tangram puzzles, and a piece of foam to make the tangrams with.
 

 It was great watching the parents and their children do math together.  As well, it gave me the chance to share some fun cooperative learning games with them, so they can help their child grow as mathematicians.  Great job Chris and Heather.  The night was a great success!

Problem Solving in Kindergarten

In Gwen's kindergarten class they have been talking a lot about the weather - And the topic of rain clouds and rain drops came up. Gwen used this discussion to have her kindergarten children participate in a Parallel Task.

The children were given a drawing of a rain cloud. They could choose between one rain cloud or two (this is what makes the task parallel). Once they had made their choice the students then rolled the number cube to determine how many raindrops the cloud would have. They wrote the number, and drew the rain drops.

From this activity, Gwen met many different Kindergarten math expectations:

Process Expectations:

* Problem Solving, Connecting, Representing and communicating;

Overall Expectations:

* Demonstrtate an understanding of number, using concrete materials to explore and investigate counting, quantity, and number relationships; and

Specific Expectations:

* Investigate some concepts of quantity through identifying and comparing sets with more, fewer, or the same number of objects;

* Recognize some quantities without having to count, using a variety of tools or strategies;

* Use, read, and represent whole numbers to 10 in a variety of meaningful contexts; and

* Begin to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects.

In addition to this, Gwen was given a great assessment opportunity as she could then make observations about her students knowledge of number. For example, she could see who was able to print numbers correctly, who could demonstrate one-to-one correspondence, who could show synchrony (assigning one word for every object), and who can use the 1-9 sequence when counting (stable order principle) and cardinality. As well, she was able to see who can self correct when they make a mistake.

Problem solving can be done in kindergarten - And when it is, the results are amazing!

Thanks for sharing Gwen!