100,000 Visitors!!!

We are thrilled and excited to note that as of today, we hit the 100,000 mark on our blog! That is a really BIG number! We are constantly amazed that so many people have taken an interest in what we do in class.

Thanks for visiting and we hope you will continue to check out what we do in Kindergarten!

Counting Teen Numbers...

We have been working on learning to recognize and write the TEEN numbers. Sometimes we get mixed up and forget that all of the teen numbers start with a "1". Sometimes we write the number backwards, for instance for "thirteen" instead of writing 13, we write 31. We are working on counting groups of objects and recognizing and writing the numerals correctly.
This video may help us remember to read & write them correctly:

Boy & Girl Graph...

We have many friends in class. Some of us are friends from before Kindergarten; and others we are just getting to know! We made a graph of the girls and boys in our class. Take a look at the photo and use it to answer the following questions:

• In the A.M. Class, are there more boys or girls? How many more?
• In the P.M. Class, are there more girls or boys? How many more?
• Comparing the A.M. girls with the P.M. girls, which class has more girls? How many more?
• Do the same for the A.M. boys & the P.M. boys.
• Which class has the most students?
• How many students in all?
• What else do you notice about the graph?

Left side=A.M.

Right side= P.M.

(boys are on left side of each graph)

50,000 Visitors...

WE DID IT!! The kids of "Kindergarten Tales" have anxiously awaited the day we would hit 50,000 visitors. I will say, I had my doubts that we would make it before the school year was over. The kids were promised a "GAME DAY" at school if we made it. Looks like Monday will be Game Day for us. Thanks to all our visitors for you interest in what we do in Kindergarten. We hope you haven't been disappointed. We hope you will continue to visit us here! THANKS!!!

Kindergarten Counts Money...

We have been learning all about coins. We know that pennies are worth one cent, nickels are worth 5 cents, dimes are worth 10 cents and quarters are worth 25 cents. Everyday we combine coins to match the number of days we have been in school. Some of us are still at the beginning stages of counting money; but others are quite good at it. We have little center of COINS in our class. We have books about money, coin stamps and REAL coins. We can sort the coins, compare them, look at them under a magnifying glass and of course, COUNT them. Take a look at how well Alex and Michael can count coins. We are constantly impressed by how well they count coins. GREAT job Alex and Michael. Keep up the good work!

Another Counting Book...

I love sharing books with you! Nothing beats curling up in a comfy spot and reading a good book, but books online can be fun too. I like the fact that some books can be shared online. There is a site called Big Universe that shares books online with you. If you really like the book, you can choose to buy it for your own library. If you want to share the book, you can also email a link to your friend. If you find a book you think I might like, send me the link in email or include it in a comment below. I would love to see what you like to read.

At Big Universe, I came across another online book that encourages you to use your math skills by counting things you may see in the city or wherever you live! You'll need to click on the link, I am not able to place the book directly on the page.

This book is called: Counting in the City. Another interesting book at this site is called: Counting at the Zoo.

 Again, think of ways you can use your counting skills when you are out and about town. Maybe you can find things that you can count by 2's, 3's, 5's or 10's.

Math Challenge...

As part of our math curriculum, we learned how to tally, graph and use pictures to represent numbers in a graph. The activity below gives you a chance to practice your skills. You may need a grown-up close by to help you with the words. I am confident you can do the math. The tallies and bar graph should be very familiar activities. The pictograph presents a challenge. Be sure to pay attention to the details in the instructions. Have fun!

Telling Time...

We are learning about clocks and how to tell time. We know about the face of the clock, the hour , minute and second hands. We are pretty good at telling time on the hour. We are trying to get the notion of how long seconds and minutes are. To count a second, we stick the word "Mississippi" in between each number. In other words we count, "One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-Mississippi, etc. We know that it takes 60 seconds to make a minute and 60 minutes to make one hour. We have a "teaching clock" in our classroom. We watched this video to help us with our learning too:

Counting 10 to 20...

We have been working on counting; not just saying the numbers in order, but also understanding and representing them. Some numbers are easier than others to read, count and understand. Just like some parents with teenagers, for some of us, the "teens" are a challenge. The numbers don't really seem to make sense. For instance, if we see the number 34, we can easily read it as thirty-four. Numbers like 17 or 13 are not as easy to read, count and remember.
We worked with partners to choose a "teen" number to count out. We included 10, 11, 12, and 20 because they help show the pattern for counting the teens. We gathered things from our room to show the numbers we picked. We grouped our things by tens and ones to help see the place value of the numbers. Maybe this video will help if you too find the "teens" a bit challenging. ;-)

Counting Books...

We are learning to count in different languages, but this is a fun book on how to count in English. Read and enjoy:
(note: for a larger version of the book, click on the eyeballs)

Here's a book on counting backwards:

You can visit the LookyBook web site for more fun books to read online or purchase. What's your favorite counting book?

Learning to Count in Polish...

We have such wonderful diversity in our Kindergarten class. After seeing projects created at "Voices of the World" and at "Brain Waves we were inspired to create! There are several children who are Bi-lingual. We love to learn new things and to learn from each other. Our friends who speak Polish have helped put together a video to teach us how to count from 1 to 10 in Polish. Alexandra did a fantastic job of saying each word, first in English then in Polish. Adrian and Kamil helped gather the pictures we needed. Together we created this teaching video. Watch it and learn along with us:

Please check back soon for more Bi-Lingual lessons!