Most of our Math stations this week revolved around teen numbers and required our really delving into one more and one less. Keep reading to find out what your cherubs were able to do!
- Tricky Teens – At this center, students spun a teen spinner and then put a marker on the corresponding number on their BINGO-esque board! 5 in a row won! Kiddos had to be careful and look for numbers that began with a 1! It got tricky!
- Pattern Block Puzzles – At this station, the students had the opportunity to explore relationships among shapes and determine how many ways the shapes could be arranged in a specific space. Using pattern blocks, the children filled in a particular puzzle shape in different ways and recorded the number of blocks used each time! Everyone became very creative with this station – definitely a fan favorite!
- Shrinking Number Monster – Are you ready for a challenge, cherubs? This week, some students were completing this center without the counting aspect! Because many of the boys and girls are really understanding the concept of teen numbers and their sequence, we had to make the exercise trickier. The kiddos tried independently (and succeeded!) to figure out one less and one more than the number they rolled! Way to go – this is hard work! If students still need to count, too, that’s perfectly all right as well!
- Roll and Color Teen Numbers – This week, the mathematicians of Room #7 rolled a giant die with the teen numbers 15-20 (represented in 10-frame form). Next, they found that specific number on their activity sheet and colored it in!
- Monster Squeeze – We’re using iPads in Room #7! A fan favorite, this independent game required students to guess a number. The computer then replied either: “My number is greater than that” OR “My number is less than that.” Children continued guessing numbers until the correct number had been determined or “squeezed” between the monster’s two long arms!
- Nearby Numbers – Using various game boards, students placed the missing teen numbers in their grid to complete the “number line”.
- Make a Train Race – An oldie, but a goodie! Working with a partner, kiddos took turns rolling a die and making a cube train. The first person who reached the number 23 won the race. In this manner, students not only practiced their counting skills but also were required to keep track of how many cubes they already had as well as figuring out how many more they needed in order to reach the specified length.
During one of our whole group instruction times, the class began to learn about how teen numbers are constructed of tens and ones. We began this important work 2 weeks ago when I asked students to represent teen numbers using just their fingers. They quickly figured out that they need 2 sets of hands (2 cherubs) to represent those numbers. The students then practiced representing those double-digit numbers together and then writing the corresponding number sentence.
This can be a difficult concept to wrap one’s head around. This week, the boys and girls learned a fun song to help them remember:
The teen comes first,
The teen comes first,
I know why it works that way...
The group of ten comes first!!
We discussed how you can “break” a number into its group of tens and ones. For example, when one breaks the number 19, one represents it like this: 10 + 9. We practiced breaking numbers using dry erase boards and markers. The kids really enjoyed the work! There’s also a fun song that we listened to similar to our teen number song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uedvwH6Ay18
The boys and girls in room #7 are learning to solve new words by making connections with words they already know. They’re exploring how words sound, how words look, and what words mean, plus they are beginning to categorize words. In class, we’ve been connecting names to other words. For example, the children are noticing that Sara and sun start the same. You can do this at home too! Have your child look for a small object or picture of something that begins the same way as your child’s name (e.g., magazines, books, TV program, etc.).
We’ve also been practicing saying words slowly and listening very carefully to hear each one of the sounds inside the word. For example, when we say dog very deliberately, we can hear three sounds, d-o-g. In class, we’ve been saying words slowly, and the children are listening for the beginning, middle, and ending sounds of words. They’re learning that they can write the letters for the sounds they hear. Using the song, “Do the Word Stretch,” on the Jack Hartman CD, the kids are practicing this tricky skill and loving it!
At home, try playing “Listen for the Sounds” while driving or in the grocery store. For example:
- Give your child a clue about a word, such as “I’m thinking of a fruit that is yellow.”
- Your child guesses the word and tells what letter it starts with, such as “Banana. It starts with b.”
The boys and girls in Kindergarten are working extremely hard on their pattern books. It is just phenomenal to see how much growth they have made in such a short amount of time. They are getting excited for families to come in Friday, December 4th from 8:30-8:45! If you are able, come and check out all the different types of pattern books they have created: one pattern, a pattern with a twist, and seesaw patterns! We look forward to seeing you there!
Have a restful and fun weekend!