A little magic tree footage...

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Dance, Freeze, and Count

The Ball Bounced

Learning Math on the Move

When you are four and five you often do your best learning in motion. We try to incorporate music, movement, games, and other areas of interest in all areas of the curriculum. Here is a video that shows how we have started practicing counting backwards. While each girl has her turn I am checking for proper order of the numbers, one to one correspondence, inclusion of zero (We love using zero in pre-k), and following the rules of the game. At home you can remember to use zero when counting, practice counting down, give your daughter lots of things to count in real life situations. This is where I often see girls skipping items or numbers when they count. The real life disarray of the objects, interruptions, or distractions interfere. Having practice counting in all sorts of ways will help firm up this skill. We have also been working on identifying numerals. Sometimes it may seem as if a young child "knows" her numbers but children are experts at using clues to help them. Point out numerals all around you and help them recognize what they are. This will help as we learn to write them in our handwriting program.

A trip to the Magic Tree

Our Handwriting Without Tears Work

Some Blue and gold footage

Discovering Hidden Shapes in our World

We used math workshop time to work in half groups. While some girls stayed inside to complete work, the other group went on a shape hunt with Ms. Hamilton. Working in half groups gives us a chance to give each girl a bit more one to one support and leads to less distractions. When we talk about shapes we use their proper mathematical names and discuss how we know how to identify them. How do you know it is a square? The girls need to articulate what they know about shapes. How many sides each shape has, how many corners, and even describing how the lines run parallel to each other, though we don't use that word yet. You can have shape hunts at your home or in your neighborhood.