Math

Our last math unit finished up before the break. We played lots of games that are introducing children to beginning concepts of addition and subtraction. With One More, One Fewer children add or subtract one from a given number. In Build It, Change It they draw a card, place their pennies on their ten-frame, then draw another card and change the number of pennies to reflect their new card. With combinations of ten, children toss ten red/yellow counters and count how many red and how many yellow land up. We made a chart based on all the combinations they turn up, something we are studying more carefully under the Common Core standards. We have been telling story problems with a focus on helping children learn to retell the problem. This helps them fix the numbers in their mind that they are dealing with, and then think through whether this is an action of putting groups together or taking a group away. This work lays the foundation for another unit in April-May. We also flashed quick images up on a screen and asked kids to reproduce them. They made their own images too, which will be used to decompose the numbers in our next unit on numbers. We have also been comparing the weights of different objects.