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.
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…
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…
Cooking with kids is a natural way to do math together. But we're not talking about turning meal preparation into a formal math lesson. Cooking together presents an opportunity that is more about noticing and…
Instructional coaching is central to the Collaborative's professional development efforts. There is a lot to learn from what works and what doesn't when it comes to early childhood coaching strategies, particularly when focused on the…
The Collaborative interviewed three Chicago-area early childhood teachers who spoke honestly about the challenges and rewards of teaching during the pandemic.
Warm weather and more daylight hours mean now is a great time to take advantage of outdoor spaces. There are so many ways to incorporate math into your child’s outside activity.
Card games provide meaningful practice of the basic number combinations. These common card games that children learn in school or at home can be revisited many times and can be adapted to children’s own math…
Language and math have a lot in common! For example, every time you describe something—as red, tall, sticky, or loud, for example—you are helping to define and categorize things. And defining and categorizing is huge…
Every day dishes need to get cleaned, and every day dishes need to get put away. By involving children in tasks like doing the dishes, you can help them see mathematics in this work.