Dominos are the perfect tool as students grow a bit stronger in addition skills. They are still a manipluative-but the challenge comes because the kids need to learn to memorize groups of dots as certain quantities, and then use the skill of "counting on" to solve each addition problem. Here, the exercises help the kinestetic learner while the "paper and pencil" recording heightens the challenge and promotes first grade readiness. A great game that can be played at home!

This week we started a new and special routine. From now through the end of the Kindergarten, each student will have several opportunities each week to solve math problems and record them in his or her journal.  As the Black Bats are expanding on thier knowledge of how to solve math problems using different strategies, this notebook will be the perfect place where they can record thier findings, and share with classmates how they found thier answer. We will soon realize that in math, you can arrive at the same answer or solution, but using a different process!

With the 100th day of school fast approaching (celebrating on next Tuesday, woo hoo!) we have been giving extra time and attention to the learning opportunities and making observations of our 100s chart which hangs in our morning meeting area. This simple chart lends itself to countless learning minilessons, and we depend on it quite often. We discuss patterns in numbers, counting routines, place value, number attributes, and most recently - the introduction of skip counting. Can you believe it....we are beyond the halfway point of Kindergarten!

We continue with measurement, but this week we explore from a different angle: capacity and volume. This is an abstract concept for our students, but exposure is the key to further questioning. Our main goal is to compare bigger and smaller capacities. Through several investigations lasting a few weeks, we will estimate and explore just...how much?

- How many cubes to fill the cup?

-How much sand to fill the jar?

-How much water to fill the glass?

-Which container will hold more paint?

We discovered that our classroom environment is the perfect, most authentic place for us to see and point out real-world examples of volume and be able to compare it all at the same!