Welcome back to our classroom. We've had a productive first semester that we'd love to share with you. One of the ways that we engage in math is by using art projects as math mats.
A math mat can be a coloring page, directed art project, or like the apple trees below. Each student designed their own apple tree, then used it for a dice game. Dice are fun and easy manipulative for little ones to manage. It helps them subsidize or see numbers quickly in groups, keep track of, and it's engaging. At the time, we were working on adding and subtracting to six. Students would roll their dice and add "apples"/cubes to their tree. Students could also use play dough apples or tiny apple cutouts. Once their tree was filled, they would roll again to "subtract" the apples. Some students decided to make this a partner game to see who could fill their trees up first. We played this game twice.
Another use for our math mats is to turn them into sound or letter sorting mats. Sorting is a life skill that is used in many subjects. Sorting pictures that begin with the letter A for apple or S for seed or T for the tree is one way to practice. We will add a writing piece about apples by the end of the week.
The week was also spent reading books about the life cycle of the apple along with excellent apple counting books. Ten Little Apples by Dial Books, Child's Play, Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins, Ten Apples Up On Top! by Dr. Seuss, Apple Countdown by Joan Holub, and Mr. Bear's Apple Tree are a few of our favorites. No week would be complete without apple engineering.
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