Introduction
The Unique Nature of Kindergarten
Kindergarten is unique, at least with regard to our curricular standards as specified in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). When considering the kindergarten requirements of the CCSS, it is readily apparent that there are not many standards compared to the other grades. Point of fact: there are only 9 math standards for kindergarten (though some of these are subdivided into more specific points of focus). This is both a challenge and an opportunity. The opportunity comes as the luxury of time. Kindergarten teachers have time to explore and address a standard through a variety of approaches. This is a very good thing, because although there are a relatively small number of standards, each one is focused on critical learning. These are absolutely critical foundational pieces that the students’ later math learning must rest upon. Case in point: standard K.CC.B.5 mandates that students must “count to answer ‘How many?’ questions.” I will give my students scores of opportunities to practice and strengthen this absolutely critical skill. The sheer amount of counting that my students do to assure success in this skill area is staggering, and this in turn highlights the challenge in having so few standards. My students become bored with “the counting jar” and similar counting activities. A kindergartener should never become bored. Not only is this an undesirable introduction to the school setting but honestly there are just too many opportunities to stretch them and help them grow beyond the requirements of the CCSS. I just have to leave the safety of ‘the box’.
Demographics
My school is a place that celebrates ‘outside the box’. It is Kathleen Wilbur Elementary School. Wilbur is located in New Castle, Delaware. My school hosts almost 1,200 students of the grades K to 5. These children come from wildly varying backgrounds. We have students arriving to us from mansions, mobile homes, and motels. We have a large and growing English Language Learning population, and many students with IEPs. Last year my class size ranged between 22 and 19 students, though I typically host 22 or 23 at any given time. I’m usually close to an almost even split of boys and girls. Wilbur’s population is predominantly African American, with a large Hispanic population, and fair numbers of white students and students of Asian decent. We have our share of students who receive learning support, or have behavioral supports in place to aid in their success.
Goals of the Unit
The goals of this unit are to address what I see as “areas of need” for my students. The activities, described in detail in subsequent sections, will challenge students and allow them additional opportunities to practice and strengthen skills in a manner that will be hands on and highly engaging. Additionally, these activities are intended to expose students to content that they will experience later on in their academic career. This very early pre-teaching of content will happen through activities that will make these bits of content attainable and manageable for my young scholars. Someday, a teacher from an older grade will likely appreciate this effort, while my students will just be exploring, working, thinking, explaining, and enjoying the tasks.
What are these challenges that I have identified and that I am addressing through this unit? My students risk boredom when overly exposed to common math activities like the counting jar (a container of objects to be counted), grab and count (which is exactly like it sounds, using small manipulatives like connecting cubes), or other similar recommended tasks. Yet they need much repetition of the counting process to strengthen the skill. Boredom in students is undesirable, but repeated exposure to counting activities is necessary. To allow for repetition of task while keeping the students engaged, I have reached outside of my prescribed K curriculum and found content that will draw them in while having them count, and count, and count some more. Win/Win.
From my personal experience and from speaking with other teachers, it seems that a lack of number sense is evident across the grade levels. This is a highly alarming idea and not just to me. Keith Devlin of Stanford University wrote, “students who lack a strong number sense have trouble developing the foundation needed for even simple arithmetic.”1 This is a need that should be addressed and I believe that emphasizing this issue in kindergarten provides the greatest chance for students to begin developing this important understanding of mathematics. Built into these lessons, students will be collaborating and discussing their thinking throughout the process. They will be making mathematical choices and justifying their ideas by sharing data collected through the counting and measuring of geometric attributes.
A third challenge I face is the apparent disconnect between the varying strands of our mathematics curriculum. This seems especially true of our geometry strand. In the eyes of my students, we work on math from late summer, through the fall, and into the beginning of winter. Then we cease math activities for a month and we explore shapes. At the conclusion of our geometric work, our triangles and cubes are put away and math returns until the end of kindergarten. Students retain content considerably better when it connected to other content. This ‘spider’s web’ of interconnected content is a powerful aid in remembering and recalling facts and details.
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