Let's Fly! Bat Conversations and Research

 In October, we spent time learning how to learn or research a new topic. I love this activity because it's inclusive.

We're using the pictures and illustrations to open up a lot of questions, concerns, and discoveries. We used our new knowledge to write about bats. 

One of our favorite counting books is Five Little Bats Flying in The Night by Steve Metzger.

Who Loves to Learn? Bunnies Do!

      Last Fall, we spent time learning about owls and pumpkins. One of their challenges was to engineer an owl nest that could hold an owl and an egg. The Bunnies are free to choose how to accomplish this task with their supplies (pipe-cleaners, plastic egg, and an owl puppet from Ikea). Open-ended projects help little brains build new connections, build relationships, and teach patience. They can either work alone, in teams, or with partners, but either way, this activity makes them think. The feeling of success is felt as soon as someone shares their work, and then others realize that they'll have the same success with a bit of perseverance. 

Another one of our favorite fall experiences is dissecting owl pellets. Usually, this is something that fifth graders engage in, but Kinder Bunnies are scientists who are hungry for knowledge. 

After reading and watching videos about owls, we spent time dissecting pellets. They were overjoyed to find various bones, fur, and other parts. They quickly connected that if an owl catches sick prey, then they'll get sick. It's our job to keep our habitats safe and clean. 

We also learned about pumpkins. Our last activity was inspired by reading Dianne Ochiltree's book Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins.   We took our pumpkins to the playground to test force and motion. In fact, pumpkins roll and quickly. 

                                                           You're STEM-Tastic!

We read Counting with Owl and Bird by Rebecca Purcell, Counting Numbers 1-20 with Owl for Toddlers by R. Rose, various owl poems and rhymes, Owls by Gail Gibbons, National Geographic Readers Owls by Laura Marsh, to name a few. 

Apples, Dice, and Math Mats, Are Nice!

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.

You're Math-Tastic!

Sorting with the Kinder Bunnies

      Welcome to our little corner of the internet. We're so happy you joined us for our math learning journey. The Kinder Bunnies and I love math and are honored to be part of the California Early Math Project. This year, I have twenty-three Kinder Bunnies/kindergarteners who are already outstanding mathematicians. We entered our school year in August by sharing our sorting and patterning skills. We started with sorting and patterning to create instant success. Patterning is a vital Math Practice that goes beyond the grade-level standards. This skill will help The Bunnies learn to see patterns and structure in reading, writing, and science. 

      We often read books that support the math standard or learning practices. Reading integrates writing, science, and art into our day.

     Teaching children, even as young as three, to sort their toys, clothes, and food is fun and an important life skill. It's a learning entry point to build self-esteem and learning success. Little brains love sensation. Our kindergarten brains went to work sorting the stuffed animals in our classroom after enjoying The Animals That Wouldn't Sleep by Sara Levine. 

The main character, Marco, demonstrates multiple ways to sort his animal collection so they'll go to sleep. Like Marco, we're also scientists and gathered our stuffed animal collection. 

The Kinder Zoologists started by selecting an animal they wanted to use. Then, we sat on the perimeter of our rug so everyone could see our collection. I asked how we should sort or group our collection. This way, we'll know where to find them when reading bedtime stories. *We spend the last ten minutes listening to a class bedtime story with a "quiet friend/stuffed animal." 

They shared with each elbow partner, the students on either side, about sorting our unique collection. As the facilitator, I helped them label their different suggestions using kid-writing. We sorted by size, colors, moving, and animal habitats. Then, one student thought that what each animal ate would be a new way to make groups. This lesson opened up the opportunity to create another list of animals to study. Ultimately, they decided to keep our collection sorted by how they moved. 

The following day, the students worked independently, sorting animal pictures into groups. Then, each zoologist shared their sorts. We communicate by using "college talk" or speaking in complete sentences. One zoologist shared, "I sorted my animals by the number of legs." Another one shared, " I sorted my animals by their colors." 

       Our sorting work was ongoing, so we read Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes by James Dean and Eric Litwin. We automatically started talking about our shoes. We assembled around the perimeter of our rug to share our school shoes. We went to work sorting by colors, style, laces, and velcro. We made a graph of our shoe colors and learned how to read a chart. 

      The Kinder Bunnies were on a sorting roll now, which led us to use our collection of school supplies after reading Sorting by Henry Arthur Pluckrose. 

     We started this lesson by having them help me with a supply issue. I just returned from the store with several bags of school supplies for our class, and I dumped the supplies out on the rug. It was a big mess. I asked if they could help me figure out how to sort the mess and enough for all twenty-three students. How can we work together? What do we know? 

     Immediately, arms went up, and they offered to help. They shared that finding containers to hold the supplies would be good. We found different colored tubs. One friend made the labels, and the class agreed to sort by each item—glue, pencils, highlighters, scissors, and notebooks. I mixed in toys to see if they'd noticed. They decided that toys should all go into one container but not on the shelf with the school tools. I wondered why they sorted in this way. One friend stated that toys are for playing and not working. We need our work tools in my teacher's place and the toys on the shelf for choosing time. 

     As we placed each item into their new home, we counted each set. One Bunny wrote the numbers on each container. We then answered that we knew that we had enough supplies for everyone in our class because we counted. 

     We spent the remainder of our time using pictures of school tools to create patterns and sorting tools and toys into our science notebooks. 

What would your little one like to sort? Use clean-up time to have them practice

sorting or grouping their toys. How would they like to put them away?

Sorting is an easy way to get them to count and compare the groups of objects. 

Please visit us often so you can see an actual kindergarten classroom integrate math throughout their learning day. 

Remember that you're Math-Tastic!