Chicka 1-9: Observation Of A Math Classroom

Observation 9: Math Each day, students do something that is a part of their circle time and it covers much of their math learning for the entire day. At the start of the day, a student is picked to be pointer and the math fun begins. They start with the calendar and count how many days they have been in school that month with one-to-one correspondence. They go over the days of the week, the month, what the previous day was, and the next day will be. The do estimation where there is jar up at the board with various small toys in it and different students get a chance to guess how many items are in the jar. At the end of the week they will find out the exact amount in the jar. They also are learning about place value by counting how many days

Students watch two video shorts, one about the number one and one about the number two. They watch the videos on the smart board while sitting in their spots on the carpet. There is some giggling because the videos are intended to be a little silly. Something else they also did was to read the book Chick- Chicka 1-2-3. This is an entertaining book about the number zero who is trying to climb the apple tree, but finds it to be a difficult task to complete with the numbers 1-99 in front of him, and not to mention the bumblebees that cause chaos as well. The students were fully engaged in the book while the teacher was reading it and then they all counted to 100 together. They do minimal learning outside of what is being explicitly taught at circle time and with the introduction of specific numbers each week. It is very short and students do not have time to really explore math concepts outside of this, as they are not learning centers set up for practicing mathematics, but I think that there should be. They are learning about counting with one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, place value, estimation, shape characteristics, and some skip counting, which are all good foundational skills for preschool students (p.