- Topic: Addition, Subtraction: Book: Teddy Bear Counting by McGrath.
- Topic: Shapes, Spatial Reasoning: Draw and color pictures of one or two attribute blocks.
- Topic: Number Order, Sorting: Give each kid 3 cards with numbers between 1 and 100 on them. Each kid puts their own cards in order. For example: 23, 59, 77. If 3 cards is easy, give the kid more cards to sort.
- Topic: Addition, Counting: Book: Princess Chamomile Gets Her Way by Oram.
- Topic: Codes: Give the kids the key to a number-letter code (e.g. 1 = C, 2 = H), and some encoded words. The key and encoded words are here. The kids decode each number and then match the simple word with a clip art picture. For example, if the word is ‘FROG’, put it under a picture of a frog.
How did it go?
I led the younger circle this week. 4 kids attended. We had a great circle this time with lots of focused energy.
Teddy Bear Counting
In this book, 12 teddy bears come to play. Then they dance around in different groups, and then run away. The kids really enjoyed this book. They especially loved counting the bears when they were in groups of 3 or 4 to make sure there were really still 12. We also practiced counting by 3s and 4s. One kid cheered when the 11th and 12th bear came. He said he thought there would only be 10. Another kid asked if we could read the book again at the end of circle.
Attribute Block Drawing
The kids have a lot of practice drawing still life and self-portrait in their pre-school, so this ended up being pretty easy for them. A couple kids had trouble drawing triangles (they looked like squares). Also some of the orientations were tricky. For the picture above with 2 triangles with a square in the middle, some of the kids drew it as 3 non-touching shapes.
Hand out three cards with random numbers on them to each kid. The kid then tries to put the numbers in order from smallest to biggest. My son is absolutely obsessed with these number cards, so he was able to sort 10 or more cards at a time.
The other kids did not have as much practice on number recognition and number order. One kid thought ’36’ was 16. and ’28’ was 18. I think her pattern was that if it has 2 digits then you say the second number, followed by ‘teen’. She watched very closely as I read her numbers and some other kids’ numbers, and seemed to really be thinking about how the naming worked.
Another kid was able to name all the numbers, but wasn’t sure of the order. The final kid didn’t recognize the numbers but was also interested in listening to me and the other friends name them.
This is not really a math book…it’s about a princess mouse who is not allowed to eat sweets. She writes a letter and gets a piece of candy for every word she writes. We all counted the words together and got 31. Then the book shows all the different types of candy she picked (“3 jelly mice, and 4 licorice twirls…”). We used the unit cubes to check that all those numbers actually add up to 31.
I gave each kid a key to a letter-number code. Then I handed out a different short word to each kid. They used the key to decode the word, then sounded it out (with help), and put the word next to a clip-art picture illustrating the word.
All the kids LOVED this activity. Each kid did 3 or 4 words and would have kept going if we hadn’t run out of time. This activity also helps with number order and number recognition since the code has the numbers 1 – 26 in order. Many kids did not yet notice that the key is sorted by number, so they treated each number as new, random search.