Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Preschool: A Closer Look - Numbers

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With each week’s lesson, we learn a new number.  This sounded like a good concept at the beginning, and it was…in the beginning.  I didn’t realize how quickly Trevor would catch on to both counting and visually recognizing the numbers, so I had to think of other ways to supplement our number day.  So instead of just focusing on learning a number, I am starting to teach early math skills.  Some things we are working on are counting objects, copying patterns, recognizing ‘same’ and ‘different,’ and translating between the verbal, written, and symbolic (ex. number of fingers held up or stickers on a page) numbers.

My favorite manipulative is this Lauri Toys Tall-Stacker Pegs and Pegboard Set.


Pointing and counting the number of pegs in the board


Copying the pattern


I also love Melissa & Doug puzzles, and this number puzzle is a perfect passive teaching tool. I like to have set times (blanket time when he was younger, and now table time after we do school) for him to independently work on something like this so he can freely explore a new concept and challenge himself to do something without my help.  Believe me, it doesn’t always (usually) work as smoothly as it sounds, but it’s a goal!

Melissa & Doug Jumbo Numbers Wooden Chunky Puzzle


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2 comments:

  1. I was just at a math inservice and we were talking about teaching math concepts. The instructor provided us with a 3X3 grid and we used small unifix cubes to show the representation of each number. We always had to keep the board balanced side to side or top to bottom (so each representation looked like the number on a domino) then the 10 was a whole stick of unifix cubes to the left of the grid. This was a really neat visualization that helped a couple of my kiddo's at work. I have a few handouts that go along with it. I love your ideas and am having fun thinking about how I can incorporate what I already do at work into preschool when Zeke gets older!!

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  2. Thar sounds really neat. I'm pretty new to any sort of formal concepts, I usually just put together what I think would work =) So it was a 3x3 grid to hold up to nine, so the idea would be that if it got more than nine it would kick it up into the 10's pile?

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