MATH1

Back to Kindergarten

=CHPT 1 POSITION AND CLASSIFY=

Culminating Project: Spiders, Spiders Everywhere
Read the story and make a spider using 2 black circles (stapled together and stuffed with newspaper) and 8 long skinny strips (folded accordian style for legs). Instruct students to place their spider over, under, behind, left, right, inside, outside, top, middle, &amp; bottom in relation to classroom items and themselves. Next have students pose with their spider in one of those positions. You may want to have children draw sticks or roll a dice to see which position they will be modeling so that you have don't end up with 20 pictures of a spider under the table.

Print these pictures out or put them in power point presentation and on another day have students classify them by picking out the ones that are the same and the ones that do not belong. For example, put 2-3 pictures of a spider to the left of something and 1 picture of a spider to the right. If you are using a powerpoint presentation, make the picture that doesn't belong a link to the next slide. The benefit of this is that students can play independantly later.

This project works well with other stories too. I use Rosie's Walk on the first day of school to help teach playground rules. The students color a copy of Rosie and put her on a popsicle stick. Then I take pictures as they take Rosie under the monkey bars, around the pole, behind the slide, etc. and she gets back in time for...snack. I teach them our lunch table rules as they eat their "chicken feed"--trail mix.

Whole Class Presentations and Online Games
[|Dam Jammer] lets you play on 3 levels (basic shapes, flips/turns and combined shapes) helping a beaver stop breaks in the wall. Although shapes are from the Readiness Chapter, you can have students tell you where the leaks are (ex. at the top of the damn, in the middle, etc.)

[|Math Lingo] is a tic-tac-toe game with pictures. Students would need clues to be read to them. (Ex. The block is on the top) This is a great review of position and shape words as well as the critical thinking and listening component of this chapter.

[|Chateau MeddyBemps] is simple click and drag practice that works great for whole group or cooperative learning partners. Have students move the animals around according to your direction or a partners (ie. move the bird over the doghouse, move the dog under the house)

[|BillyBear4 Kids] What does not belong? Click on the one that is different.

Independent Online Games
view student page at [|TechCenters]

[|Sorting Elmo's Laundry] is a great transition from classifying to sorting because it uses the word sorting but only has you selecting one same item (out of many different ones) at a time. It also starts out by telling you what to find and then lets students figure it out for themselves (with an audio prompt if they get it wrong). It does go fast, so kids will have to step up their mouse skills:)