Inside a kindergarten classroom with Augustana students

Week 7 Experience

This week we spent a lot of time working with our students who are still struggling with our initial number sense concepts. We have a couple of students who are still only able to count to 10. When it comes to 11-20, they get confused and will mix the numbers up or skip them all together. We counted with them several times a day to help get the idea in their head. We tried having them play Line ‘Em Up on the iPads. We noticed that at hey were not able to complete the task unless they were guessing which numbers went where. When we asked them what number they were placing, they only knew the correct number if it was less than 7. When it came to the higher numbers, they didn’t recognize the number. Several of the students were not able to start the game unless 1 was placed for them already. They would also have to recount the entire sequence before they knew what number was supposed to come next. We have started using a tracing app with them to help them learn to recognize the numbers as well as how to write them.

We also worked a little bit with our “advanced” group of students.  Three of the four students were able to write all of the numbers from 0-20 without much difficulty. The other student stopped at 10 and said she couldn’t continue. Some of the numbers were reversed when they wrote them. They had particular problems in the teens figuring out which number should be written first. One of the students told me that he knew the one was supposed to come first but he liked to write them the other way. We plan to work with these students on the correct way to write the numbers, with specific emphasis on 6,7 and 9, where they had the most difficulty. These students recognize written numerals and understand that numbers that come later are larger. The last thing we did was have the students play Ah Chute as partners. We turned on the multi-chips and let the students figure out what they meant. One of the students quickly grasped the concept. Without being prompted, she explained to her partner that he couldn’t place his 3 chip where he was trying because there was only room for two chips and he would be dropping three. Together they then came to the conclusion that they couldn’t place that chip anywhere because there were no columns open that had space for three chips.

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