1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,960 Today I'm going to talk about five building thinking classroom tasks that are perfect for kindergarten. 2 00:00:11,840 --> 00:00:17,360 Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Make Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers, 3 00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:22,720 specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense of their 4 00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:30,560 students. I have been working on developing tasks for kindergarten, which can be a bit of a challenge 5 00:00:30,560 --> 00:00:35,520 to find tasks that are appropriate for kindergarten, but also will keep them going. A lot of times, 6 00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:41,920 you know, problem solving or more simple problem solving is kind of like one student finishes or 7 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:46,240 one group finishes and the rest are kind of like twiddling their thumbs like I'm not sure what to do, 8 00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:50,400 or you have half that finish, half that don't finish, and then you're managing kids who don't 9 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:55,200 have anything to do and kids who are still working. So I feel like that's the balance, that's the 10 00:00:55,200 --> 00:01:01,120 challenge that I've been finding, but I think I have a solution for you. So I kind of broke off 11 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:08,240 into two kind of categories of tasks. There was the story driven task and the more challenge-y 12 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:12,240 driven tasks, because I don't know about your kindergartners, but if I told them it was a 13 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:16,880 challenge, they were into it, they wanted to do it. Counting and number writing can be something 14 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:22,720 that kids don't necessarily want to work on, but definitely need to work on to develop their number 15 00:01:22,720 --> 00:01:28,960 sense. So this kind of strand or this kind of goal is perfect for a storytelling task so that kids can 16 00:01:28,960 --> 00:01:35,920 really get into it and think of it as more of a story, more of a math adventure than just extra 17 00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:43,280 practice. So for this one, it kind of, they, for this task, they kind of go together. The background 18 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:50,480 story is that the possum pups playhouse dogs knocked over the treats and the kids have to figure out 19 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:57,200 how many treats were eaten by the dogs. So on their recording sheet, they'll have 10 frames that they 20 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:03,760 have to count and figure out how many treats were eaten by each dog. So they have counting in and 21 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:08,800 number writing in, because all of those dogs have names, so it's something to keep them going so 22 00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:13,600 it's not like they're just writing one number and then waiting for something to do. They have a whole 23 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:20,320 set of dogs and dog treats that they're looking at and counting so that if groups finish, they have 24 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:25,040 something else to do and if kids are taking a little longer to get started, that's absolutely 25 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:30,240 fine too. They can look around the room, they can use their partner and really get the practice that 26 00:02:30,240 --> 00:02:35,360 they need and it's helpful to have someone else there to listen to the kids count because you 27 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:42,080 can't be there all of the time. As far as the check your understanding piece, I kind of ping-pong back 28 00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:48,240 and forth between a traditional extra question or a game that kind of reinforces the learning that 29 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:53,840 they've done depending on the topic. So this task, the possum pups playhouse task, would be one where 30 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:59,280 they would have a game to go with it. So the game has a spinner on it and they would spin and figure 31 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:03,920 out how many dog treats there are, so they would have to record that number on a 10 frame or vice 32 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:08,560 versa. They would spin and see how many treats there are and have to write the number. So it works 33 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:14,640 either way and that way kids are getting practice counting and number writing together with a theme 34 00:03:14,640 --> 00:03:21,360 to get a little more engagement and a little more student buying. The next task is called toy trouble. 35 00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:26,960 So in this one, the kids and their friends have just had a blast playing with all the toys but now 36 00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:32,720 it's time to clean them up and to clean them up they need to sort them. Sorting is another tricky 37 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:38,400 one because ideally they would be sorting real things and get that practice but when that can't 38 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:44,240 happen a task like this works really well. So in this one their recording sheet shows whichever 39 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:50,800 toys they're trying to look at and they need to figure out how many of each toy there is and this 40 00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:57,280 is perfect for the idea of sorting, kind of putting like things together and eventually working on 41 00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:03,680 graphing or kind of the basis they need to be able to organize and graph data. The thin slicing for 42 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:08,640 this task is once they finish the first one they'll have a different sheet that has more items so it 43 00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:13,280 starts with just two different toys that they're sorting moving to three and if they're really 44 00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:17,520 they're really on it they really want to keep going then they can practice sorting four different 45 00:04:17,520 --> 00:04:24,080 items. The next tasks don't necessarily have a story but get at skills that they need to be working 46 00:04:24,080 --> 00:04:29,840 on in a way that's a little bit different than a traditional math station or math center time. The 47 00:04:29,840 --> 00:04:37,920 first one is composing shapes. So in this one they have different challenges that they will create so 48 00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:44,240 composing larger shapes from smaller shapes using pattern blocks. So it might be something simple 49 00:04:44,240 --> 00:04:48,960 like create a hexagon and if they've played with pattern blocks a lot that might not be something 50 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:53,760 that's too challenging for them to start off with and then it gets more complicated such as 51 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:59,760 creating a house or creating a rocket ship something like that that they will be into and it's kind of 52 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:04,720 something else for them to keep going with so it's not like one task they're done and then kind of 53 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:11,200 twiddling their thumbs wondering what to do next. In a similar vein we have the longer and shorter 54 00:05:11,200 --> 00:05:16,640 tasks so some of these math standards are harder to find tasks for so this is kind of more mobile 55 00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:22,800 and moving around. So each student will have a pencil and they have to figure out which items in 56 00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:27,840 the classroom are longer or shorter than their pencil so this one might not necessarily be 57 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:32,960 right at their whiteboard they could do it at their whiteboard and kind of go back and forth 58 00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:37,360 or they could use a clipboard and move around the room measuring different things with their 59 00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:42,960 partner to figure out which one is longer or shorter than their pencil and this one similar 60 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:49,040 to a previous one kind of has a game as a wrap-up versus a check your understanding so it's kind of 61 00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:54,160 a different way to apply the skills that they're using so for this one they will have a spinner 62 00:05:54,160 --> 00:05:59,280 that tells them how many cubes they should make their tower and then each time they make a new 63 00:05:59,280 --> 00:06:05,280 tower they compare it to a marker that's on the page and then decide if it is longer or shorter 64 00:06:05,280 --> 00:06:10,720 so in a similar vein but they're using units it's getting a little bit more challenging and they can 65 00:06:10,720 --> 00:06:15,440 do it on their own with a partner or if they really like it you can add this to your math centers. 66 00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:22,960 The next one is called the mystery bag so in this task you tell your kids that there is a mystery bag 67 00:06:22,960 --> 00:06:30,480 that has one base 10 rod and an unknown amount of cubes so they have to figure out how many cubes 68 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:35,520 could be in that mystery bag so they're starting to group their teen numbers thinking about 10 69 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:39,600 and some more so this is definitely something that you would use more towards the end of the 70 00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:44,560 school year when they're working on teen numbers to understand that teen numbers are a group of 10 71 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:51,360 and some more so similarly to the previous ones it's more of a challenge task to see how many 72 00:06:51,360 --> 00:07:01,360 different ways can you create a new number with a 10 rod and some extra cubes and again this check 73 00:07:01,360 --> 00:07:07,680 your understanding piece has three different versions of a similar game where they would spin 74 00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:13,920 figure out how many cubes there are and write the number that goes with it. I have not one but two 75 00:07:13,920 --> 00:07:20,640 bonus tasks for you to try. The next one is called cash out so this is another story-based task where 76 00:07:20,640 --> 00:07:27,680 your students are working at the grocery store but the cash registers are down so your students have 77 00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:33,520 to get the receipts of the customers which are on the recording sheet and figure out how much each 78 00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:38,320 customer owes because they don't have the cash registers anymore they're going to have to figure 79 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:44,400 out how many there are and this opens up a great opportunity for your students to explore a lot of 80 00:07:44,400 --> 00:07:49,680 different addition strategies so they might be counting on they might use manipulative and more 81 00:07:49,680 --> 00:07:56,720 so that is a quick fun task that your students can do and the last bonus one is for decomposing 82 00:07:56,720 --> 00:08:01,600 numbers so again adding a little bit of mystery so it's not a story but something that's classroom 83 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:08,240 related you'll tell your students that you have five crayons hidden inside your desk and some of 84 00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:13,520 them might be yellow and some of them might be red so for this one they're working on decomposing 85 00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:19,280 numbers to five and trying to figure out how many of the crayons in your desk could be red or could 86 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:24,720 be yellow and at the end to really clinch the buy-in you can show them the crayons that you 87 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:28,320 hit in your desk if you really want to hide some in your desk and then they can figure out if they 88 00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:33,680 were right or if they were wrong so there you have it seven different tasks that you might try with 89 00:08:33,680 --> 00:08:38,640 your students if you want more information you can always check the show notes down below i'll have 90 00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:44,640 a blog listed with pictures and so you can get a better idea of what these tasks will look like 91 00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:50,400 and if you try any make sure to let me know you can find my instagram handle also in the show notes 92 00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:55,280 i would love to hear how they went for your students and what other tasks you're looking for 93 00:08:55,280 --> 00:09:04,640 what standards are you trying to hit with more math tasks