the tenth day of school

The tenth day of Kindergarten is an opportunity to celebrate all of the children's work and learning. It is a time to celebrate 10; to count up and count down, to use ten frames as tools for organizing our counting and as tools for noticing how many more to make 10. The tenth day of school is an opportunity to collect and sort, compare and combine. It is an opportunity to move; can you do 10 lunges, 10 squats, and 10 roll ups? The children can.

We read 10 Black Dots by Donald Crews and thought of what we could create with 10 black dots. Using Crews as our mentor, each child thought of an idea, shared it with a turn and talk partner, and decided how many dots they would need for their plan. They drew a picture of their idea, representing it using a variety of shapes and lines. They carefully counted and glued their dots, recounting to check that they had the right number.

Caleb shared his work with his peers, explaining how his ten dots could be wheels! We combined our pages and published our first class book. We read the book to families at Open House on Thursday evening.

Ten Black Dots
By- The Kindergarten

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following day we brought our counting to the playground and collected 10 things in nature. Using a ten frame, each child collected pinecones, flowers, leaves, sticks, and stones. Our playground was buzzing with counting and comparing, recording and sharing.

I have 6 things, I need 4 more! 
I have 5 wood chips.
I traced my things to show them!
I tried to draw a rock, it looks like a triangle.

This work will now be one of the first entries in their math journals.