Beginning Number Concept

Giving children a strong start in beginning number concept is like building a strong foundation when constructing a house. I can remember my first year teaching first grade and thinking, these kids can count to at least 20. They learned number concepts in kindergarten, so lets move on. Why waste time on 10 frames and dot cards? Lucky for me our school's math lead teacher was right across the hall and she was quick to enlighten me to the need of explicitly teaching number sense (and reteaching it) to my first graders. Thank you Mrs. Phillips!

Debbie Diller has wonderful ideas for math work stations that teach beginning number concepts. I wanted to just jump right in and start doing them ALL with my own children (ages 2 & 5) this week. Then I realized that working through a couple of these games each week over the course of the summer would make more sense. So my plan is to take the 17 activities that she listed from pages 73-85 and do at least two each week. I plan on blogging about each of them and writing those posts geared to other parents. My plan is to use materials that could be found at home or a dollar store, so that parents could use the ideas with their children. Hopefully I will even figure out how to attach Google Docs correctly so I can offer parents some free printables to go along with the activities. So check back throughout the summer, if you can use this type of activities or want to share them with your students!

This past Saturday I was able to attend a great training called Mother Goose Cares about Math. This group has a wonderful website that teachers and parents may find useful in finding literature & activities to connect with math concepts. Go to their website: http://www.mothergooseprograms.org/math_science.php  
Click on the search button, type in your topic (i.e. counting), click on books and then a wonderful list of quality children's literature will come up. They also have free activities that would be good to share with parents, as well as articles for professionals to learn more. This group also offers free webinars and has archived all their previous ones!

So Fran in her AMAZING post this week (www.kindgartencrayons.blogspot.com) suggests some retail therapy. I was one step ahead and spent an hour on Amazon making some important decisions. I knew that I wanted some fresh math materials to use this summer with my own kiddos, so I invested in some unifex cubes, tangrams, linking shapes, geoboard, and a Crayola Activity Center. I also got a full ream of card stock and pack of 50 of laminating sheets, which basically could be used up just on Fran's freebies this week!

If you aren't familiar with the Crayola Activity Center it's a great tool. Basically you slip a worksheet into a clear plastic sheet and insert it into the tablet. Then the child uses dry erase markers to do the activity and the worksheet can be used over and over. It is going to help cut down on my photocopies at home and it apparently is LOTS of fun and the kids both love to use it. One tip though, use Expo markers since they erase easier than the Crayola!

Yippe! New teaching materials to use with my kiddos this summer.

It's like Christmas....lots of free materials & books from my Mother Goose training.