Methods of Math Teaching and Learning

Number Talks with Five Good evening Please forgive me for not posting a new blog last Sunday.  I will write my continued adventures in kindergarten. Although, I have started a NT with first grade teachers and students. This post will discuss the progress of NT in kindergarten. We continued with tens frames last week. This group remembers procedures very well. As soon as they sat in their places on the carpet, the students immediately place their fist to their chest. We are continuing working with 5 on the tens frame using both bottom and top levels. The questions I ask are "how many do you see?" and "how do you see it?" Quickly students place thumbs up to inform me they know the answer. Students responses for the most part are accurate. Most  students can denote there are 5 dots. A couple of students may say 4 or 3. Therefore, they are making progress. The following link is an example NT problem: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AOhF0OtPBhByfuMt00IWELRIMoK

Good evening, In kindergarten this week, we are continuing with the concept of four on our tens frame. This time both levels of the tens frames were use.  The tens frame below is one of the examples from class. Students are beginning to understand that four dots arrange anywhere on the tens frame is four.  Only one student continues to struggle with subitizing four: Teacher: So how many do you see. Student: I see three over here and one more over there to the right. Teacher: Well, lets count the dots. Student: One, two, three, and (with hesitation) four. Teacher: So now how many dots do you see? Student: I see four. After having this student to actually count the dots, she realizes that there are four dots and not three and one more. A couple students manipulated the dots to where they could recognize immediately there were four. This is fine. However, I want them to move from counting to actually readily knowing that there are four dots. Until then, the kindergarten teac

Good evening again. I'm sorry this post is late, but I'm in Destin Florida. The internet connection is terrible in this lovely resort. Let me not belabor the point of this blog entitled The Meaning of Four. This week in kindergarten we concentrated on the number four. Not so much of the symbol numeral 4. But what four means and how kindergarten student understand what four truly means. So, the kindergarten teacher and I did a NT involve four dots. The four dots were randomly placed on the upper tier of the tens frame. The students remember the procedures very well. Some continued to raise their hand when posed a question, but for the most part they have it. The challenge was their perception of what four means when looking at four dots. It was quite interesting to see that some students perceive four as three dots and one more. However, they could not make the connection  that there are  four dots. Some of students also quantify four dots as 2 dots and 2 more dots. However, w