Basic Addition – Kindergarten(1510)

When young children start their first day of school, they walk into the classroom having such a wide range of abilities. I look at the kids who have been in preschool for 1 or 2 years, some who have had daycare type exposure to learning, some have stay at home parents who have diligently worked on their ABC’s and 123’s. What about those children who have had little to no education before they strap on that backpack? Depending on where you live, you might see very little or quite diverse student capabilities.

I began volunteering in my daughter’s kindergarten classroom right away last fall after I was laid off. It was the best thing I could have ever asked for! I found so many valuable things in those short 9 months. In one small room I uncovered a love for teaching and being around children, a master teacher that my daughter learned so much from, and a woman who encouraged me to go back to school and who also agreed to be my mentor. Kindergarten is one of the most crucial grades in the school for so many reasons. When I was deciding what grades I wanted to focus on, I immediately knew the younger children was where I would be best suited. On the flip side, my heart races at the thought of having such a burden to teach a child how to read, write, behave in a school setting and respect themselves, their peers, and their teachers.

I want to discuss the basic addition that children learn in this magical first year of class. Once the number recognition and understanding was there for these students, they gradually worked into addition in the winter months. I remember sitting in the classroom observing a lesson and having my own “ah-ha” moment as I watched Mrs. Dunphy instruct the children. A very easy concept, when you have two numbers that you want to add together, you simply start with the largest number and then count up the amount of the next number.

For example, I have 3 apples and I need to add 2 more. I start at 3 and simply count up 2 places to 4, and 5 as the ending point. There are great hands-on manipulatives to help with the mathematical learning process. Unifex cubes, base blocks, paper chain links, checkers, or any other object can be used to show examples of addition. Children need to see things in different formats to help the concepts stay with them. It is beneficial to mix in lecture, worksheets, projects and stations for the students to reinforce their math skill. My mentor switched her math time from the afternoon to the morning half way through the year because the students were tuned in earlier in the day. She was very thoughtful with how she worked in simple math concepts of patterns, addition, and subtraction within some of their daily stations in addition to their set math lessons. She has learned over the years to keep it light and fun and the kids will stay engaged in the learning process.

Marble Math Addition

Basic Math Games 

In closing, I share a heartwarming example of how you can never give up on a child in your classroom. This year I knew all of the kids quite well and each of their abilities and some of the things they struggled with, or so I thought. I went over to a sweet little girl; I will call Susie, to check her off on her addition worksheet. Susie had struggled quite a bit with many concepts this first year, did not have much confidence, was shy and timid at times, and also has a heart of gold. I walked over to see the page of about 50 basic addition problems completely filled in. I sat down next to her on my own yellow stability ball and went through the whole sheet and couldn’t help buy start to smile. Susie had done EVERY PROBLEM RIGHT! I asked her if anyone helped her and how she did so well, to which she responded, “I don’t know, I just did my best work!” I gave her the biggest high five; great big hug and told her how proud I was of her for doing so well.

My eyes started to fill up with tears as I walked over to the teacher to show her the paper and explain the scenario. Mrs Dunphy responded with, “You can never give up on any child, because it is when you least expect it that the light bulb will go on and they will finally get it.” I know that these words will ring in my head in the years to come. There were many similar stories towards the end of the year in this classroom with certain students who didn’t know any letters or numbers in September and passed their grade equivalency tests in May.

Teachers do make a difference! I can’t wait to share my love of math and problem solving with the little ones who will make their way to my room. I hope someday to have these “magic skills” like Mrs. Dunphy. It is amazing to see the change that is possible in a child when you give them the love and attention they each deserve.

A Cup of This - A Dash of That (1512)

I love to cook and honestly can’t remember how young I was when I first entered the kitchen. I can tell you that once my mom and grandma taught me how to bake, and I could read a recipe, that I was the official baker in our household of 6. Needless to say, I ALWAYS had to double any cookie or brownie recipe, as it did not last long with 4 kids in the house.

Looking back, perhaps this is where my love of math came into play as well. My dad was, and still is, the “geek” and numbers man that helped me throughout school. He even gave me the gentle nudge to pursue my accounting degree the first time around in college. My mom was the busy housewife trying to make ends meet and keep us all happy around the dinner table.

In my eyes, a recipe is like a puzzle that must be put together “just so” in order to come out perfectly. I have learned through trial and error that baking needs more exact measurements, while other recipes for cooking you can become a little more creative and innovative.

A recipe is compiled of different measurements that have been tested by others to create something delicious. It will usually include measurements in terms of cups, teaspoons and tablespoons. This is where the fun of fractions comes into the picture! Here is a link that gives equivalent measurements to either reduce or enlarge a recipe.

Cooking Measurement Equivalents 

I recently ran into some confusion with my 83-year-old grandma. She makes WONDERFUL molasses cookies and I wanted to bake a large batch to hand out for teacher appreciation week for my kid’s teachers and teaching assistants. She emailed me two recipes, which confused me like crazy. I was trying to take the larger one and cut it in half to get the 2^nd recipe she had given me, however nothing was lining up. She wasn’t home to answer my question, but my sister finally responded that they were actually two separate recipes that she thought were both good and wanted to give me options. Uffda! And yes, I will share those great family secrets with you all here too!

Grandma Pearl's Cookies

Grandma Pearl's Large Batch of Cookies

Abby and Grandma Pearl 2009 Christmas Baking

Laura, Cousin Evan, and Grandma Pearl 2011 Christmas Baking

Snowflakes, in July?? (1512)

Abby's first attempt

Abby's Snowflake

My 6 year old daughter asked for help to make snowflakes over the 4^th of July weekend when it was 90 degrees outside! We were on a camping trip and had a little downtime this past weekend, and my artistic daughter wanted to make something fun. We got out her paper and markers and decided to make some snowflakes. I started showing her how the paper needed to be folded from a square, then into a triangle and then another small triangle. She has made them before of course, but it seemed to be a good math lesson for this camping trip. My 4-year-old son was interested too, but he couldn’t quite get the cutting down for such a small area with his little fingers. The first attempt on her own ended up in a piece of paper crumbled into many pieces because she had cut through the edges too far. She soon got the hang of how deep she could cut in, which edges corresponded to the outside and which were the middle of the snowflake. The symmetry when it is done is what she loves the most! She practiced making tiny slits, diamonds, circles and even hearts while cutting through the layers.

Here is a quick video on tips to make the perfect snowflake.

It is never too early to introduce children to the names of shapes and where we find them in our every day life. There also has been many times where we are sitting down with the Magna Doodle and draw shapes and pictures. My son likes to say, “Build a house Mommy”! Obviously in our brains we usually start with the outside square or rectangle, then the triangle for a roof, then the square windows, rectangle vertical door, circle doorknob and any other details we might be imagining at the time. By introducing kids to these images early in life, it puts it in their head to be on the lookout for them. For instance, a sailboat on the lake looks like it has triangles that make up the sail reaching up high above the rest of the boat. If a teacher can get the kids involved with fun projects and they are much more willing to spend the time on learning about math!

 

Standard Devi-what? (1512)

As a “non-traditional” student, it is hard to remember how and when I learned some of the basic information in math class. I might have some visions of a chalkboard and a teacher lecturing, others might have memories of endless sheets of problems to be solved. The methods we learned many years ago might have changed for the current generation of students, and we must adjust and learn how to teach these children.

I have not used standard deviation in years and struggled while recently trying to calculate it. I started with things that I could do well, like calculating the mean of the items. After finding the mean in the set of numbers, I then subtracted the mean from each number in the set. This gave me the deviation of the specific numbers from the mean. The next steps are to square all of those deviations (differences) and add them together and then divide by the count to get the variance. (Is anyone else tired and confused by this point already?) Once you have the variance you are so close!! Keep going!! The standard deviation is computed by taking the square root of the variance.

The standard deviation is a way of knowing what is normal, and what is extra large or extra small. The standard deviation can either be negative or positive depending on whether it is smaller or greater than the mean. It is a difficult concept to understand, to say the least. I could have used this knowledge more this past year when the preschool screeners were trying to tell me where my son was compared to others who had tested. I was quite confused and couldn’t remember the reasoning behind the term and was too afraid to ask in fear of looking like an idiot. I’m glad that I can now understand the concept and inform future parents on the explanations behind the scores they might see.

Here is a website that walks you through the steps to compute the standard deviation.

 Math is Fun

If-Then (Week 1, 1510)

After a 10-year break from college courses, high school calculus, geometry, algebra and basic elementary math, I'm back at it! What I have realized while diving back into the content is that I remember bits and pieces of the information. I was not able to complete any of the questions without referencing my textbook, at first. I wonder if this is what young children feel like after returning from summer break and staring at their math homework that they had mastered only 90 days prior? 

Part of the difficulty I experienced was due to the terminology being something that I don't use in my every day life. There are not many people I know that analyze a conditional statement for "fun". I have noticed that my 4-year-old son often has troubles with if-then scenarios, but I guess I can't blame him when I struggle at times too! He doesn’t always understand the phrase, “If you go to the bathroom and wash your hands, then we can go to the park.” He immediately rushes out the door without thinking twice about any of the steps in between that might need to happen. Sometimes we just need to stop and think about whether a statement makes sense or whether it has any instances where the answer would disprove the statement.

A friend who was struggling with the terms and explanations related to reasoning mathematically was directed to this link (and shared it with me) and it is a wonderful video to engage anyone who wants to learn about this topic! If-then statements are everywhere and it is nice to have a real world explanation versus a textbook for examples.