Our PreSchool Blog

The K-Prep class has been working so hard on their numbers and counting! This week we were able to count using some fun materials!

We counted beads onto pipe cleaners! This helped us practice some fine motor skills!

Because our science theme has been about ponds this month, we counted frogs onto lily pads!

We also sorted and counted yummy skittles. We even got to eat a few!

 This week in math, the K-Prep class worked on making their numbers using the correct formation!  We sang fun number poems to help us, which can be found in the students’ homework binders.  Throughout the week we built on this skill of forming numbers, while trying to accommodate many learning styles!

The students traced tactile yarn numbers with their fingers, drew numbers in sand trays, and traced dotted numbers using dry and erase markers! A dry and erase writing activity is also found in the homework binder.  You can never get too much practice!

What a fun and busy week of learning!

We have been working hard this month on our addition math study unit…we have used many different manipulatives such as marbles and unifix cubes to learned the fundamentals of addition.  According to learning theory based on psychologist Jean Piaget’s research, children are active learners who master math concepts by progressing through three levels of knowledge–concrete, pictorial, and abstract. When children use manipulatives it allows them to explore addition at the concrete level. When students manipulate objects to solve addition problems, they are taking the first steps toward building understanding and internalizing math processes and procedures.  They will then use the base knowledge to develop more sophisticated problem-solving strategies in the future.

We’ve been working hard during the month of December on reviewing numbers 1-20 with a focus on number 12.  The number twelve seems to be tricky for most of the students because it doesn’t fall into the basic “teen” rule.  “Numbers in the teens, they start with a one.”  We used the classroom clock as a reference for numbers 1-12 and watched a fun, interactive video that put our lesson to music.  Music is a great way to help children learn, young AND old.  If you’d like to watch the video with your child, click on the photo below.

Mr. Tenny loves to eat numbers!  We reviewed our numbers 1-12 this week as we strengthened our hand muscles in preparation for writer’s workshop that begins next week.  Keep working on those name during homework!

Basic math and number concepts utilized in a preschool or kindergarten prep classroom set the foundation for learning more advanced math concepts. Early exposure to math and number activities will promote your child’s comfort with these skills. Also, additional opportunities to practice these skills will increase your child’s confidence when working with math and number concepts and will lead him to believe he is “good at math.”  Click HERE for some fun activities to do with your child at home in all areas of math.