Starry kindergarten students have been working hard to become excellent mathematicians; one of the skills that they have been focusing on is addition. Everyday Math, the math curriculum that is used at Starry, has students practice addition in a variety of ways. From early on in the school year, students have taken part in activities that help lay the foundation for being able to add. An example of this is an activity called Pocket Problems, which students did in October. When participating in this activity, students count a set of small objects, and then the teacher puts them into a pocket where they can no longer see them. The teacher then puts one or two more into the pocket, and students have to figure out how many are in the pocket altogether. Although they were not yet using terms such as plus and equal to, activities such as this have prepared students for where they are at now with addition.
In the last month, kindergarten students have been focusing heavily on learning about vocabulary and symbols related to addition, and applying this knowledge through a variety of games. They started by learning about the equal to symbol, and then moved on the to addition/plus symbol. Students worked on identifying and explaining their meanings, as well as how to read them in the context of a number sentence. In Everyday Math, students are often tasked with playing math games to reinforce the concepts that they are learning; so, kindergarten students have been engaging in a variety of games involving addition. These games include Roll and Record 2, Growing Train, and Ten Bears on a Bus, to name a few. Students play these games during their class’s math block, as well as during W.I.N. time. Some of the games are played with a partner, while others can be done individually; additionally, Everyday Math has an online component, so some of the games can be played on an iPad.
Throughout the remainder of the year, students will continue to work on addition, and will learn how to subtract as well. It has been so much fun to see how much progress students have already made!