Voting for our Favourite Weather

We love having a survey at the snack centre. We find it inspires children to engage in discussions with one another regarding the posted question as the question is often written by a child which embeds literacy into the centre, and it's a great way to infuse regular math and math talk into our day.

The children have noticed the weather changing as winter fades into spring. Our snack question asked children to vote for their favourite type of weather. Rather than have children write their names under their choices, we encouraged them instead to indicate their vote with a stick. This way a visual representation of the votes could easily be seen in the clear pockets placed underneath the pictures. 

The children figured out the process of how to vote instantly. They understood that one vote equalled one stick and that to use more than one wouldn't be an accurate representation of our collective favourite type of weather. 

As children took turns voting we overheard rich math discussions; the children discussed the most popular weather type and how many votes they estimated it had. They also noticed that the two least favourite had equal votes.

This was an incredibly popular activity that was left out for a few days. Children would revisit it throughout the day to see if the votes had changed and to observe which was the favourite.

We wanted to capitalize on the children's interest in weather so we modified the activity with some new weather cards for our whole group circle time. We offered three weather choices again and this time encouraged children to place their popsicle sticks in jars next to the picture. Unlike the snack survey, this vote took place at circle with every child voting one at a time.

Unlike the first vote, the results for these weather types seemed to be more difficult to assess upon just examining the jars and we encouraged the children to suggest accurate and efficient ways to calculate the votes.

One child suggested organizing the sticks into groups of 5, because 5 was a 'friendly number' (easy to work with because we can skip count by 5s). He suggested organizing the sticks into tallies to make it clear to see how many votes each weather type had. What a fun way to infuse number sense activities (one to one correspondence, subitizing, skip counting, comparing numbers) into an area of interest the children!

Letter Roll and Stamp

We wanted to continue to encourage children to practise identifying upper and lowercase letters. We placed letter dice, stampers, and letter cards out. 

The children were encouraged to roll the dice, identify the letters, and stamp the corresponding letters on the paper. 

We also went on a scavenger hunt and cut and pasted matching letters from magazines in order to explore how letters can be written using different fonts. 

Creating Equations with Dice

We placed many math tools out today including a hundreds chart, various kinds of dice and dice with addition or subtraction signs on it. 

The children immediately had a plan for how they wanted to use the tools. They rolled two number dice with an operation sign to create an equation. They then copied it into their papers to record their math. 

Some children wanted a challenge and used three number dice and two operation dice. 

 

This led to a really interesting conversation about the order the numbers should be placed in when creating the equation and if it's possible to subtract a big number from a small one. One of our friends shared what he knew about negative numbers!

 

We were so impressed with the great math thinking and reasoning observed during this activity. 

If you offer children open-ended math materials that they can explore on a regular basis they will rise to any challenge!

Race to 100

We continued with our fun math games today in an effort to help children subitize and calculate simple addition by using dice. We placed a hundreds chart, a basket of dice, and some game pieces on a table for the children to use.

 

Each child got a game piece. Everyone started at the number 1 and took turns rolling dice in order to move their player forward. The children were challenged based on how many dice they used; it was easier to roll 1 dice as you only needed to recognize the dots representing the numbers 1 - 6. To make the game more challenging we used more dice for some children - as many as 5 - and the children had to calculate how many spaces to move by adding the dice together or counting all the dots.

 

 

This simple game had children identifying the numbers from 1 to 100, adding more than two digits together, identifying the faces of a die, recognizing patterns in the hundreds chart, and thinking about probability terms (e.g., "If I roll more than 1 die I have a greater chance of getting to 100 faster than you"). We are always amazed by the abilities and enthusiasm of our children!

Magic 10

We played a fun game today called Magic 10. You need 10 dice and a 10 frame to play. 

Once you have your materials you roll all 10 dice. The number that is rolled most becomes the magic number. 

The dice showing the magic number are placed on the ten frame. This is a quick reference to see how many dice rolled have the magic number and how many more are needed to fill the frame. 

The dice are rolled and rolled until the 10 frame is filled. 

Then the game is won!

Rolling and Recording Numbers

We invited children to practice identifying and writing numbers using a fun probability game. 

The children had to roll a number die...

...and then record their number on a tracking sheet. 

It was fun to count and see which number was rolled the most.