Jump to content

Menu

If you could go back and teach kindergarten math without a curriculum..


jkl
 Share

Recommended Posts

Anyone want to share what they'd do?  The more detailed, the better!  When ds was 5, I started Mep yr1 with him.  It was a total disaster!  I ended up scrambling around and finding different worksheets, games, etc. for us to do.  I spent a lot of time coming up with math activities for him to do the following week.  He enjoyed it, but it was time consuming for me!  Now, dd will be doing K starting in September.  We now have 4 kids, and will be in process to adopt (paperwork!!!!!) starting in January.  I want to do lots of fun mathy things with her, but I want to plan it all out, gather materials etc. before the year starts.  I have lots of manipulatives:  Cuisenaire rods and base 10 blocks (I have miquon but ds hated it, so I'll probably stick to the education unboxed videos), pattern blocks/activity books, a variety of counters, lots of living math books (plus a fabulous library).  I just need some cohesive way to plan it all out.  Anyone want to brainstorm with me? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Eclectic Manual of Methods has a section on what to do pre Ray's Primary Mathematics. I would follow those suggestions. Using manipulatives teach a child to identify quantities. Then recognizing how those quantities change when you add/subtract 1, 2, ...

 

ETA that I guess that would still be following a curriculum?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

my  E key is kinda wonky so if I have weird typos....

 

I love the idea that you have. For me, I look at th progression that a lot of boxed curricula have, and I look at common core standard guidlines.  (I am not pro-common core; I just think it's a nice cohernt age approach typ of checklist. Rebecca Rupp has a similar list in her book, but it's $20ish.)

 

I wouldn't plan it out as a on this day we do this kind of schme. Kids are too unpredictabl as to how fast they learn a topic. I would make a list of topics to cover and then try to hit those weekly or monthly.

 

So, a list like this: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/CC/ might tell you what those milestones are along the way.

 

Here are the other math ones for K:
http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/OA/ (adding and decomposing between 10, demonstrating those operations with equations, graphs, blocks, etc.)

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/NBT/

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/MD/

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/G/

 

In addition to that, I'd work on patterning, time to the hour, a.m./p.m., seasons, months, days of the week, etc.

 

Beechick's book is another $4 good idea of a place to check for topics to cover.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agree with the others above.

 

The great games and other hands on activities from the Ronit Bird Overcoming Difficulty with Numbers book.  Lots of manipulatives and tons of fun mathy games.  Lots of playing store and suggestions from this website:

 

http://mathfour.com/about

 

Maybe some things from this thread:

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/499692-looking-to-do-some-relaxed-math-here-want-to-share-ideas/

 

Mainly showing that math is everywhere and can be fun.  That math is not just rote memorization of a bunch of boring facts but is part of our daily lives all around us.  Giving a REASON for math.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kitchen Table math has lots of ideas of how to teach without worksheets.

 

I'd get Cuisenaire rods, fraction rods, tanagrams, pattern blocks, and do lots of exploration. I'd get a balance and measure things - like how many legos weighs the same as this ball. Measure things with a ruler. Get cups and measure how many cups of water to fill a cooking pot. Count lots of things. As counting gets good, ask how many groups of 2,3, or 4, etc. Work lots of puzzles. Build things with popsicle sticks and glue. Make up work problems using real life objects and people. If you and brother and sister each want to eat four cookies, how many would we need to bake?

 

Some of math skills are built by learning to count and use numbers, but much is learning special relationships (volume, measurements, geometry).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Eclectic Manual of Methods has a section on what to do pre Ray's Primary Mathematics. I would follow those suggestions. Using manipulatives teach a child to identify quantities. Then recognizing how those quantities change when you add/subtract 1, 2, ...

 

ETA that I guess that would still be following a curriculum?

 

Ha!  :)  That's ok!  I'll take a look anyway!

Box of legos, pattern blocks, measuring cups and spoons, thermometer, dominoes, deck of cards, chalk

Excellent!  We have all of these!

 

I would just go through the education unboxed videos in an order that makes sense to you and your kid.  Those have been an invaluable resource to me!!! 

I'm so excited to use these with her!  ds enjoyed the few we've used!

 

my  E key is kinda wonky so if I have weird typos....

 

I love the idea that you have. For me, I look at th progression that a lot of boxed curricula have, and I look at common core standard guidlines.  (I am not pro-common core; I just think it's a nice cohernt age approach typ of checklist. Rebecca Rupp has a similar list in her book, but it's $20ish.)

 

I wouldn't plan it out as a on this day we do this kind of schme. Kids are too unpredictabl as to how fast they learn a topic. I would make a list of topics to cover and then try to hit those weekly or monthly.

 

So, a list like this: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/CC/ might tell you what those milestones are along the way.

 

Here are the other math ones for K:

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/OA/ (adding and decomposing between 10, demonstrating those operations with equations, graphs, blocks, etc.)

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/NBT/

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/MD/

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/G/

 

In addition to that, I'd work on patterning, time to the hour, a.m./p.m., seasons, months, days of the week, etc.

This is sort of what I'd thought we'd do--make a list of concepts I want covered and then hit each one multiple times during the year in different ways.  Thanks for those links to the standards, though.  I was trying to use the ones my state has online, but they are so full of jargon-y gobbledygook that I couldn't quite make out what the true goals were (and I'm a former teacher!)

 

Kitchen Table math has lots of ideas of how to teach without worksheets.

 

I'd get Cuisenaire rods, fraction rods, tanagrams, pattern blocks, and do lots of exploration. I'd get a balance and measure things - like how many legos weighs the same as this ball. Measure things with a ruler. Get cups and measure how many cups of water to fill a cooking pot. Count lots of things. As counting gets good, ask how many groups of 2,3, or 4, etc. Work lots of puzzles. Build things with popsicle sticks and glue. Make up work problems using real life objects and people. If you and brother and sister each want to eat four cookies, how many would we need to bake?

 

Some of math skills are built by learning to count and use numbers, but much is learning special relationships (volume, measurements, geometry).

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

Agree with the others above.

 

The great games and other hands on activities from the Ronit Bird Overcoming Difficulty with Numbers book.  Lots of manipulatives and tons of fun mathy games.  Lots of playing store and suggestions from this website:

 

http://mathfour.com/about

 

Maybe some things from this thread:

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/499692-looking-to-do-some-relaxed-math-here-want-to-share-ideas/

 

Mainly showing that math is everywhere and can be fun.  That math is not just rote memorization of a bunch of boring facts but is part of our daily lives all around us.  Giving a REASON for math.

Checking out these links...

 

Thanks so much everyone!  I think this will be fun!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My kindergartener will probably sit in on the LoF elementary series (though we will do it again when he's older) at least part of the time. 

We are using TumbleBooks.com and other math stories. 

I have 100 million thousand file folder games filed away that I will probably sift through and put together someday. I'm sure some of those are kindy math.

We are really just reading and working through OPGTR.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

we played store a lot.  Giving change, paying for 2 items at the same time, etc.  We even got into bargaining and discounts. Excellent for basic computation.

 

We also estimated.  numbers of birds, number of steps to the tree, distance in meters across the field, number of cars in the parking lot. How many cups of water in a bucket.  How many jelly beans in a jar. etc.  Then you check yourself.  This is really good for developing numeracy and measurement. 

 

Finally, lots and lots of word problems as we were walking around town.  Once upon a time there were 2 trolls on a hill, and each one had 5 apples. How many apples did they have?  Now one of them gave 2 apples to the other. How many fewer apples did he have?  They sat down to eat lunch, and cut their apples into 8 pieces.  How many pieces did each one have?  etc..

 

We got super goofy.  Can't really reproduce it off my head, because it was just an 'in the moment' sort of thing.  But have fun!  After a while, I had ds make up the problems and make sure I was right with the answers.  Very very effective for problem solving.

 

We did this system through first grade, and only started workbooks in 2nd grade.  It worked so well, both my kids just jumped into 3rd grade books.

 

Little kids don't *need* math workbooks!

 

Ruth in NZ

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We did MM because my kid's a workbook lover, but we played a ton of games too. 

 

Cuisinaire rods - one of his favorites was to pick a rod, say the 7 rod and figure out how many different combinations he could make to get to 7. (5+2, 5+1+1, etc)

 

Yahtzee

 

Zeus on the Loose

 

He loves taking a ruler and measuring everything he can get his hands on

 

Fill up the sink with water and put in measuring spoons, cups and jars. See how many teaspoons in a cup, etc. 

 

Math catch! Throw a ball back and forth. The thrower calls out a math problem, the catcher answers it and then becomes the thrower. We've done addition, subtraction, skip counting and doubles so far. I'm planning on using that a lot for times tables

 

Baking - especially doubling or halving a recipe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ive done a no-curric year directly before moving into first grade math, and plan on doing it again next year.

 

We focus a lot on counting (by ones, by tens, by fives, by twos), on recognizing the numerals 1-10, on basic addition and subtraction, on 2d shapes, on length and descriptors like longer, more than, ect, and finish off with place value.

 

I use education unboxed, board games, card games, dice games, dominoes and the math section at my library.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyone want to share what they'd do?  The more detailed, the better!  When ds was 5, I started Mep yr1 with him.  It was a total disaster!  I ended up scrambling around and finding different worksheets, games, etc. for us to do.  I spent a lot of time coming up with math activities for him to do the following week.  He enjoyed it, but it was time consuming for me!  Now, dd will be doing K starting in September.  We now have 4 kids, and will be in process to adopt (paperwork!!!!!) starting in January.  I want to do lots of fun mathy things with her, but I want to plan it all out, gather materials etc. before the year starts.  I have lots of manipulatives:  Cuisenaire rods and base 10 blocks (I have miquon but ds hated it, so I'll probably stick to the education unboxed videos), pattern blocks/activity books, a variety of counters, lots of living math books (plus a fabulous library).  I just need some cohesive way to plan it all out.  Anyone want to brainstorm with me? 

 

I'm going to go at this from a different direction.

 

"Curriculum" means "the subjects offered by an institution of education." IOW, what you teach is the curriculum, not what you use to teach it with.

 

So, your arithmetic curriculum would be something like this: "Counting from 1 to 100 by 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's; identifying and counting penny, nickel, dime, quarter; matching items; telling time to the half hour; measuring inches and feet, learning days and weeks."

 

You can teach all of those things without buying a single thing, watching a video, writing on a piece of paper. Board games that use dice, a jar of coins that dc can play with just because, checking the clock to see if it's time to go, checking the calendar to see whose birthday it is or when the next park day is...all of those things are natural parts of life (or should be, and can be with just a little effort).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In preschool (K4/K5) We did the math activities in the "What your kindergartner needs to know" book.  They required almost no planning or prep.  I used (or easily substituted) things we had around the house on the fly.   I also read a bunch of the math start books and did activities to go with those. 

 

ETA:  We started RightStart A in kindergarten after our informal year.  Now after using RightStart, I will ALWAYS use that method for introducing basic numbers to kids.  It is very natural and fun. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We did life. Go put seven plates on the table. Now one fork for each plate. If you had two candies and I gave you two more, how much do you have now?

 

We also play a lot with c rods. We work on building a staircase fluently write we start anything formally.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wish I had found Math On The Level when ds was young. I'm using it now to fill in some gaps before we start Algebra in a few months. There are so many ideas to include math in every day life and in fun ways, especially for the younger years. I don't think the samples do the program justice. It's an expensive program initially but it could have saved me a lot of money over the years if I had found it earlier. I believe there are a few online seminars coming up next week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have said many times that, if I had it to do over, I would not use a math program at all prior to middle school level math. I would use dominos, playing cards, dice, number boards/ hundreds charts, felt shapes, pattern blocks, c-rods, duplos, a ruler, a yard/ meter stick, a tape measure, measuring cups and spoons, a clock, a calendar, and other manipulatives to explore one-to-one correspondence, the four operations with whole numbers, parts of a whole, shapes and space, sequences, similarity and congruence, measurement, time, and numbers and math in general.

 

I am just at a point where I find elementary math delightful and view full blown math programs with little people as a hinderance rather than a help. (OTOH, I acknowledge that beginning in middle school, I would purchase a curriculum, and undoubtedly there are plenty of people who are comfortable exploring middle school math without a full blown curriculum, so this is in no way a bash on anyone who is using or wants to use a program. So, if you don't feel comfortable without a product, certainly use one. ;-) )

 

However, if you want your young child to explore math without using a program but are not sure how to encourage that exploration, there are books like Kitchen Table Math that can help suggest things to do or books like What My <blank> Grader Needs to Know that can give you a general scope and sequence if you just want a general checklist to make sure that your child has opportunity to explore a variety of topics. I definitely wanted to encourage anyone who is on the fence that you don't need a textbook for kindergarten math. Your child can explore beginning math concepts without one. :)

 

HTH-

Mandy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

we played store a lot.  Giving change, paying for 2 items at the same time, etc.  We even got into bargaining and discounts. Excellent for basic computation.

 

We also estimated.  numbers of birds, number of steps to the tree, distance in meters across the field, number of cars in the parking lot. How many cups of water in a bucket.  How many jelly beans in a jar. etc.  Then you check yourself.  This is really good for developing numeracy and measurement. 

 

Finally, lots and lots of word problems as we were walking around town.  Once upon a time there were 2 trolls on a hill, and each one had 5 apples. How many apples did they have?  Now one of them gave 2 apples to the other. How many fewer apples did he have?  They sat down to eat lunch, and cut their apples into 8 pieces.  How many pieces did each one have?  etc..

 

We got super goofy.  Can't really reproduce it off my head, because it was just an 'in the moment' sort of thing.  But have fun!  After a while, I had ds make up the problems and make sure I was right with the answers.  Very very effective for problem solving.

 

We did this system through first grade, and only started workbooks in 2nd grade.  It worked so well, both my kids just jumped into 3rd grade books.

 

Little kids don't *need* math workbooks!

 

Ruth in NZ

This real life use is what we're doing.  I didn't realize you had waited till 2nd on worksheets.  That would help my ds immensely.  He's very bright but he is so not ready for that.  Just not.  We're using the Ronit Bird stuff and I'm CRAZY for it.  I think the trouble for someone who wants to do things alternatively is not having been through it before.  Curriculum is buying someone else's expertise so you can develop your own.  So if someone doesn't know where the math is going and what they want to cover, they should definitely get some kind of framework to keep them on track.  Having been through the grades, I know where it's going so I feel pretty free to be as radical as I want, knowing we'll get there in the end.  I think I have that Family math book (both levels).  That's a terrific way to organize things.  Bummer for some people is going to be if they live in a state that requires testing.  If your dc understands all kinds of things but isn't used to it in the way the test requires, you'll have a pickle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...