Math lately

We've been delving deeply into a few math concepts lately: addition, subtraction, shapes, and those tricky teen numbers. Below are some games and activities we've done to deepen our understanding!

Understanding subtraction as taking away
We played a game called Clear the Deck, in which the first person rolls two dice: one with an addition or subtraction sign, and one with numbers 1-6. If they roll a subtraction sign, they need to take away that number of circles from their deck. If they roll an addition sign, they need to add that many back on. The first person to clear their deck wins!

Addition and Subtraction Stories
We tell addition and subtraction stories (also known as story problems) several times a week, and practice writing out the number sentences and drawing a picture to go with. In kindergarten, we encourage kids to use their fingers and drawings to demonstrate their answer, because this helps it stay concrete in their minds.

Geoboards

These boards are equipped with small nails that allow for rubberbands to be stretched out in different shapes. We had lots of explore time with the boards, and then practicing making certain shapes - which helps students attend to the number of sides and corners that each shape has. 

Understanding Teen Numbers

We made "teen scenes" to show that teen numbers are 10 plus some ones. Students could use any object in their scenes. The choices shown below were flowers, people, and ipads!