The first thing I was struck by when I moved from teaching high school English to elementary tech was how many learning tools are used in a kindergarten classroom. Learning is truly multisensory and touch is leading the charge. This week I got to see math manipulatives in action. In technology class I have been working with the kindergarten students on making good movies about learning and reflection. The plan for the day was to continue making "Letter Movies" where they are assigned a letter and they have to find things in the room that begin with that letter.
When I got to class, Tali, the teacher, asked if we could do some math practice at the end of the lesson. I told her that if she had math that we could film we could make it the focus of the lesson. In no time she had the kids circled up and was walking them through the math film and learn activity. in groups of 3 they were adding using plastic spiders, plastic bears, bingo chips, and more. The students had a number chart they referenced to know how to write the numbers correctly and they were grouped in like-ability groups. What really surprised me was how wide their skills ranged. One group on the floor was adding 4 and 5 digit numbers. In addition to the math rods they had a couple of thousands blocks!.
So in the room we have kids that can add 4 digit numbers, as well as those that cannot write a 5 facing the right direction.
In each group there are 3 roles:
1. Doing the math: writes the problem and gets the correct math manipulatives out
2. Checking the math, watches #1 closely and helps if needed
3. Filming the math, as they work the camera person records them. The camera focuses on the paper and the manipulatives.
In the end we have differentiated math practice groups and we could review the movies and see how they are doing independantly. We had 8 groups and 2 adults working in the room, so each group got intermittent attention during the lesson.
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