Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Today we marked the 80th day of school. We talked a lot about that number's name: EIGHT-TY. Many of the students now understand that the "TY" at the end of "eighty" stands for "TEN." Eighty is simply a quick way to say "eight tens." The numeral has a zero on it to show that there are exactly eight tens and no "ones" to go with them. "80" shows that.

We did a math game called "Roll and Record with 2 dice" for the math lesson today. At this point only a few students can mentally combine the numbers shown on two dice. Most kindergartners right now count the dots on one dice and continue counting spots on the second dice to get a total.

Caleb was one of the few who were able to mentally combine the dots on two dice, one showing five dots and another showing six dots and tell the class that there were eleven dots between them. He also predicted the outcome of the game we were playing, though that was mostly lucky guess. It is true that the sums in the middle of the range can be made more different ways, and that increases the likelihood of that winning. Here is Caleb after the math activity. He guessed that "6" would win and it did.

In my book making center Rocco worked so hard. I could not always see his face under his dad's company hat, but I could feel his concentration.

Just so cute, I had to share a photo:

Way to go, Rocco!