Math Thinking and Learning
In our stations, we have been doing a lot of sorting and counting. We have been exploring making numbers, using whiteboards, smelly dough, pipe cleaners and wikis. We have been playing games with numbers like Count & Sit and # Zingo. We have also been exploring shapes, playing games like Blink and Quirkle and playing with pattern blocks and geoboards. Students spend about 36 minutes a week during stations (three 12 minute sessions) engaged in DreamBox math learning.
Number Talks!
We want our kindergarteners to be mathematicians who talk about numbers. Last week, we did our first "quick image" Number Talk together in stations. A quick image is an activity where students practice the skill of subitzing. That's a fancy word for being able to see a small amount of objects and know how many there are without counting. During a number talk, a series of dots is flashed at the students three different times for about 1 sec each time. Their brains examine the dots and internalize the number based on some grouping strategy. Once they have seen the image, they have a chance to share what they saw and how they thought about what they saw. We started by looking at a variety of different ways to see the number 5. This activity is not only a wonderful way for students to build number sense, but also a way for them to learn how to talk about numbers, share their strategies, listen to others strategies, and understand another way of thinking. The kids loved it as much as I do! We will share our strategies on the blog soon to see if the adults' strategies are the same as or different than the students'.