Holiday Math

While we spent a lot of the holiday season focusing on literature links to language arts concepts and arts projects, we also worked on several key math concepts and introduced some new ones.  Here's a peek at what we were up to in math during the month of December.

The kids "bought toys" by counting out the change for the price of the item pictured on the card.  This was a fun way to work with money and begin to count mixed coins.  Many kids quickly realized that they could use dimes to count by 10's to "buy" a bigger ticketed item.

Yum!  Sorting, graphing, and tallying gumdrops was fun!  After completing the worksheet, the kids created 3-D sculptures out of the gumdrops using toothpicks to connect them.

The biggest concept reinforced this month was teen numbers.  After completing a teen number addition sheet with a teacher (10 + a single digit = a teen number), the kids matched their answers to colored ornaments and added a yellow star.  These turned out so nice, we displayed them on our classroom bulletin board!

Teen number identification was further reinforced by a round of Teen Number Go Fish.  Played like regular Go Fish, the kids asked for and matched teen numbers.  "Do you have an 18?"  "No, go fish!"

When working with addition, we are learning how to create number addition sentences.  Here, dominoes are being used.  The kids add together each side of the domino and come up with the sum.  At this point, we are not concerned if a child can add in his or her head, we just want them to understand how a number sentence works and use strategies (counting dots, objects, etc.) to find the answer.  After practicing this on a worksheet a few times, they will begin to write the number sentences more independently.