September 26, 2024
We find that one sure fire way to warm up children’s attitude towards mathematics is to build math activities and lessons out of the books they all love to read. When we start to sort through books that could be used in this way, three categories emerge.
Measurement is a topic with a lot of early math big ideas and books are wonderful portals to explore them. Plus, children’s books provide an easy platform for repeated, playful conversation. When reading books about…
From a racial justice centered perspective, books can be powerful tools to engage children in mathematics learning. The worlds, stories, adventures, characters, and possibilities that are made available through books – explicitly math focused and…
In this video, preschoolers share the quantities they see when looking at a photo of a box of doughnuts. There are many ways to answer the question, how many of what?, depending on the unit.
Many of children’s favorite board games follow a path to a goal. Exploring a number path with young children also leads to a goal that is critical for early mathematics: understanding number relationships. What is…
Counting books that offer children opportunities to participate bring play into math learning. These books engage children physically, cognitively, and emotionally—making them favorites that children will ask to read again and again.
It turns out that mathematical thinking is developed in conversation with others; asking students “how do you know that?” will reveal a child’s mathematical reasoning skills. The ability to explain one’s thinking is a cognitive…
Counting Collections is an activity rooted in sense-making and joy. It invites students to count a collection of objects, talk to a partner about how they counted and then draw/represent their collection on paper. In…
Children are naturally interested in birds, so springtime is the perfect opportunity for early childhood data collection activities. Here are some favorites, along with book recommendations.
Looking for new rekenrek activity ideas? Try voting with a rekenrek chart. In this video, we see a rekenrek chart used to solve a dilemma common to early childhood classrooms: choosing between two favorite books…