It’s exciting to reflect on the year gone by not only to support forward thinking for the new year, but also to appreciate precious moments and memories. My Top Nine Photos on Instagram of 2017. Handle: meljmaxwell Spatial Reasoning Provocation A clear plastic table cloth with Sharpie paint pen shapes drawn on it invites children… Read More Best Nine Photos of 2017 on Instagram
Subitizing is ability to instantly see or recognize how many without counting. It helps develop fluency in number sense and it supports further understanding of more elaborate counting(e.g., skip counting) and addition/subtraction. Douglas Clements says in Subitizing: What Is It? Why Teach It?, “Students can use pattern recognition to discover essential properties of numbers, such as… Read More Subitizing Experiences with Freebies
Children learn best from experiences and when given the opportunity to create their own math games children can become meaning-makers and construct their own knowledge and understanding. They become a partner in learning where their ideas are valued and tested. We value setting out math provocations that have an intentional focus: A place where children can… Read More Inviting Children to Create their own Math Games
It’s not just another classroom with neutral colours, stones, and baskets. We live in Muskoka and our environment as the third teacher reflects our culture of living and how we encourage children to care for our forests. We spend lots of time exploring forests using a forest-school type approach: playing with bugs, building dens, and inquiring about… Read More A Reggio-Inspired Classroom Design – Kinderland Tour Part 2
This playful open-ended provocation has various natural loose parts and colourful Easter items that begs to be played with. These intentional materials were chosen to encourage math play, specifically numeracy and measurement. We like putting dots on some of our loose parts as well as numerals as it encourages subtilizing, but what’s more, even if a… Read More Easter Math Play
Subtraction Leap Frog Materials: Construction paper leaves with 3 numbers on each. Game Players Dice: We created our own dice with wooden cubes from the dollar store. Modifications: We’ve played this game several ways. 1. Math the Number: Roll the die and if that number is on the next lily pad then you get to… Read More 3 Playful Subtraction Games
Our Grade 6/7 Learning Buddies from Luke Felhaber’s class came to Kinderland for some creative holiday celebration. Our EY team is always mindful of making sure our food is safe for children with allergies. I spoke with caregivers about what products are safe for their children and they came in to review the food a… Read More Gingerbread House with Plan
The following are some provocations/invitations for learning that we had out around Hallowe’en. With beautiful pens, pencil crayons, highlighters, and crayons, kinders had opportunities to write about Hallowe’en. Vocabulary prompts were visible for kinders as a reference and fun and spooky writing paper was photocopied freely. Our Hallowe’en Sensory Tubs had black beans and… Read More Hallowe’en Provocations
This past Friday in honour of Hallowe’en, but more importantly student interest, we held a Bat Bonanza with our Learning Buddies. We have one kinder who is especial interested in Batman. ‘Interested’ is not a strong enough word. This kinder’s enthusiasm for Batman has stirred engagement and learning for many young kinders in Kinderland. Inspired… Read More Fun Friday: Bat Bonanza with Learning Buddies
Fun Friday – Apple Day with G6/7 Learning Buddies This past week we have been using apples as a learning tool. Our poem of the week was “I’m a Little Apple”. We made patterns and prints with apples. One of our curious kinders brought in a crab apple that they found near their Judo… Read More Fun Friday – Apple Day
inspired by play 