Becoming "Math-magicians"

Throughout the month of November we have been discussing with the children how important it is to practice our math skills on a daily basis. We have been discovering together that math is everywhere. During our play many math concepts can be found, however every day we take time to have all the students engaged in math play. We call this time Math-Magician Time. We can all make magic with math.

Each student has the option to choose from a variety of manipulatives to show their learning and understanding of a range of mathematical concepts. We allow the children to choose their own manipulatives in order to develop self-regulating skills. We have found that moving from the "must-do" bins we used to do in the past allows the students to enter at their own level and increase the difficulty as needed.

Matching numbers on dominoes.

Making numbers with dominoes.

Playing math games.

Counting to 100 by 5s.

Using one-to-one counting.

Showing the number 7.

Making numbers with blocks.

Making our own dominoes.

Showing groups of numbers to 6.

Forming numbers with connectors.

Making up our own games - rock/paper/scissors.

Practicing counting with tally marks.

One-to-one correspondence.

Making our own 5-Frame. 

Counting to 10.

Showing what we know about numbers.

Following the math period we join back together at our meeting place to share some of the learning the teachers noticed as well as have the students share their thinking. We will often project some of the activities on the Smartboard where the students can come up and point to various aspects of their learning. This gives the students the opportunity to communicate orally with their peers and share in their interests.