Math Talk!!
Each day we spend time doing an activity called Math Talk. We talk about what the little ones notice in the picture first. Sometimes we are even able to change our thinking (synthesize) as we gain more information from our peers. Many times we are able to infer by looking at the picture clues tying in our comprehension strategies with Math.
One of our Common Core Standards for kindergarten is to be able to describe objects in the environment using names of shapes and describing their relative positions using terms such as above, below, beside, etc. I started using our Math Talk pictures to introduce and reinforce math skills last year. This year after our initial District Common Core Math Assessment, I decided I needed to do something to help the little ones with describing objects in their environment, so I incorporated this standard into our Math Talk discussions.
We also use our pictures to count by ones, two's, and sometimes we are even lucky enough to find pictures where we could count by 5's or 10's. I provide them with problems to solve during Math Talk. Some are easy and where others are more difficult to reach all levels of students.
Also, each week I post a picture on my classroom facebook page for my little one's families to practice together at home. I thought maybe you would like to see what one of our pictures look like. I decided to include 2. The first one is one I created using clipart and the second one is a picture I found on the internet. My little cowpokes have been doing this since the first week of school and we do a picture a day, so I don't have to lead much of the discussion. They are amazingly good at describe where things are now, looking for clues in the pictures and deciding what we count. Let me know what you think or if there are other things we could do with our Math Talk pictures. Happy talking!
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