New Work Places; New Calendar Pieces

As we entered a new month this week, the children created new calendar pieces for the month of November. This month's theme is butterflies, which the children had to creating symmetrical wings using crayons and then water colored the background. The pattern for the month is an ABC pattern. The children were also introduced to the words right side-up, sideways, and upside down, to describe the direction the butterflies are flying. We will continue to graph the weather in Our Month in School chart.

Also this week, the children counted bugs on ten-frame cards and then matched numeral cards to the pictures. This activity reinforced counting by 1's, recognizing 1 more, instantly recognizing quantities to 5, and seeing quantities in relationship to 5 and to 10. It was also a great activity to practice justifying our answers!

We also sorted bug cards by which ones had spots and which ones didn't. Then, we shared what we noticed such as there were 18 bugs altogether,
4 bugs with spots and 14 bugs with no spots, and there was one bug with 8 legs. This was a great lesson that allowed us to have structured math talk (Mathematician Dyad), which the children are improving on each time I have them talk with their partner.



We were introduced to a new work place: Unifix Cube Patterns. In this work place, children are observing patterns and copying and extending patterns. First, the children have to pick a pattern card. Then, they have to build the pattern using Unifix Cubes. The last step is recording the pattern on the recording sheet.

Other work places that the children have been introduced in the last two weeks includes Top-It and Dot Bingo. In Top-It, children are playing with a partner comparing numerals in the range of 0-10. Whoever has the bigger number, gets to take both cards. This game is very similar to War. In Dot Bingo, the children are learning numbers can be represented in many ways. For instance, if a child were to roll a 4 on the die, he or she could cover the number 4 on the board, the box that has 4 fingers, or the box that has the dice pattern for 4.