In Kindergarten, students work on number sense for the whole year. It is a deep, integrated, and complex process. Most recently we are still working on "touch counting," (one-one correspondence) and looking at place value more closely. We have exposed the Black Bats to place value the entire year in morning meeting. A very creative way allows them to see a tangible example of place value. As we keep track of the days of school (now, 70!) we use small straws to represent days. As we get to a new group of ten, we make a "bundle" of the ten straws, and as a group, they move to the tens spot. The kids are able to predict now, how many days of school left we have until we make a new "bundle" or group of ten. It is quite fascinating at the higher level thinking they are achieving.

This week we introduced a big and complex concept which will continue well after we return from Christmas break. Measurement. And along with that, we talked about the term estimation and how you can estimate or "guess" when studying just about anything. Our estimation tied to math when we wanted to measure then length of certain objects. Since standard measurement is a bit complex as well, we start by using nonstandard objects to measure. For our purposes, we use unifex cubes. For example, we ask questions like, "how many unifex cubes do you think it will take to equal the length of this book?" Usually, our guesses are way off, but that is ok, as we are trying to promote the idea of cricitally thinking, before we just dive in and find out for sure.  Stay tuned for more blurbs on measurement as we have more experiences with it!

Until we break for Christmas vacation, we continue to work through our units guided by our curriculum, Investigations. Here we continue to strengthen our understanding of:

• The Number System: Encompassing oral counting, identifying written number sequences, and how these words and symbols represent quantities.
•  Number Relationships: This includes concepts such as building numbers in different ways and combinations of groups (ie: 4+4=8, as does 3+5=8 etc.)
• Emergent Addition and Subtraction: This presents itself as the ability for the student to explain the combination and separation of quantities. Games and story problems with manipulatives promote success. 

As always, and proven in best practices, the above concepts (and more!) are embedded in many times, spaces, and teachable moments of our day. Through our approach of PBL, we are able to connect these necessary concepts to their keen interests of topic area at the time.