In our class, there are several kids who are what we call "cp-knowers" (which means they understand the concept of a group of items having a
total), some who can recite the count list without understanding cardinality (if I ask "so how many are there?" they answer "1-2-3-4!" instead of "4"), and some whose counting skills deteriorate past 3.
I've been playing Monster Math, Panda Palace, and Pizza Math (all from Anna's cognitive development lab and affiliated preschool math endeavors) with the kids at our "Games" (alias "Math") center. The kids love the games, and those whose skills were shaky two weeks ago have begun to show significant improvement.
Panda Palace, a math game based off of the book of the same title, the kids have to count the number of animals in a certain "party" and then find the card with the corresponding number of place settings so that the animals can be seated at the restaurant. For example, a child has to count the five monkeys before searching for the table with five plates. Today, A matched all of the tables and groups
perfectly with almost no coaching from me. We finished playing right when her grandmother arrived to pick her up, and she had the hugest, proudest smile on her face. This week, L (who has shown incredible improvement in his math skills just two weeks) has played both Monster Math and Panda Palace and been incredibly proud of himself when he finished each game. He has trouble concentrating, so I've been working with him outside of our classroom to eliminate possible distractions. When he's able to focus, he gets totally excited and engaged in the game.
Yesterday, we joined our Macdonough friends for an amazing field trip to KidCity, a seriously phenomenal local children's museum. The kids had a blast - we played in the spaceship room, the apple orchard, the fishery, the restaurant, the video theater, the lake house, and the music room. Check out Andy's photos at
this link!
A favorite story from the past week: I assigned G to Games on the day we were playing Pizza Math. Before we even started, she got teary, saying, "Ms. Sydney, I can't play Pizza Math! (hiccup) "I'm just - hiccup not that kind of kid!" I brought her over to the table and told her that she could watch ME play Pizza Math and join in whenever she was ready. She ended up deciding that the blue, green and red "toppings" (tiny clay circles) were blueberries, cucumbers and strawberries, respectively, and gleefully "baked" several well-counted pizzas.
And finally, one of our biggest successes so far: K, our most bashful kid, has finally begun to get up and dance during our good morning song! Hooray!
It's been a long break since I last posted from Macdonough, but I'm back with a vengeance! Expect at least 2 more posts before the week is through.
A lot has happened since I last posted! We had a great third week and are already nearing the end of the fourth. Amazing how time flies! All the kids (and teachers) are just getting into the grove of the Kickstart schedule, but we'll be done before we know it. Then it will be off to kindergarten with the lot of them!
This week is animal week, and we've been doing so many fun activities! We have a class of budding literature lovers: everyone loves listening to stories, so we've been reading at least 3 books each day including The Very Busy Spider, Five Little Penguins Sliding on the Ice, Is your Mama a Llama, Clara Caterpillar, and If I were a Jungle Animal. In art, we've practiced our cutting, made butterflies out of coffee filters, hand print butterflies, and our very own class caterpillar. We've gone Fishing for Numbers, learned about dice and played some games with them, and made certain numbers of bears go dancing in a cave. And of course, made incredible structures out of our Magna-Tiles (thanks Ms. Anna for the recommendation—we concede that they're pretty amazing).
Our writing is improving dramatically each and every day! Everyone can write his or her name, and many of us can write the whole alphabet. Because of rainy conditions this morning, we got to do a very special activity: we got to draw our letters and numbers in shaving cream on the table. Some of our friends were great helpers and reminded us how to draw our letters ("Draw a line down, then a bump, then another bump. That's a B!") Unsurprisingly, everyone got pretty covered in shaving cream (including Ms. Taylor and Mr. Andy—somehow, Ms. Maddy and Ms. Crissy emerged untouched).
