We are often asked what children are learning each day in preschool and a big part of those questions are based on math and literacy. Many of the things that we do daily work on children extending and learning new skills in math and literacy but today we had a couple of things that we thought you might like to see and that you could easily do at home with your child!
This morning, as a provocation, I set out large tree cookies, jewels, little caps, and spindles with rings. I didn't tell the children what to do with these materials but just allowed them to create their own masterpiece. We have been studying mosaics a little bit lately so I assumed that they would make some type of mosaic artwork on the tree cookie. I was pleasantly surprised when the children started to make patterns on their tree cookies. The children that came to work at this table worked purposefully to find the perfect pieces to complete their work.
EB was very excited to show me what she had done. She said, "I made a pattern, it has circles with a cap on the inside and a jewel on top!"
MD said, "Ms. Beth I used circles and caps, it made a face!"
CS started with a simple A, B pattern around the outside of her tree cookie. She then continued to work on a more complex A, A, B pattern on the inside of her design.
EK worked very hard on her pattern work. She worked on a tree cookie that another child had started. She added jewels to the top of the spinals in an A,B pattern and then created an A, B pattern on the inside of her design as well!
Later in the morning we put out a provocation that was purposefully focused on math. We used picture frames to contain the work, we added number pieces, large rocks, water, paintbrushes, and the leaves that we collected yesterday. Using the number pieces children painted the number that they picked onto their rocks with water and then counted leaves to match their number as well. They loved this work and were excited when they figured out how to write each number. I sat with them and we talked about the different numbers, how to make them, and we counted together!
The bonus to this learning is that is it so much more than just learning about math. Children are developing their social emotional skills; managing feelings, taking care of their own needs appropriately, interacting with peers, solving social problems. They are working on fine motor skills and language skills as they talk with each other. They work on cognitive skills such as; attending and engaging, persisting, problem solving, showing curiosity and creativity, making connections, and using classification skills. And of course we worked on math skills; counting, quantifying, connecting numerals with their quantities, understanding spatial relationships, measuring objects, represents and analyzes data, and demonstrating knowledge of patterns! You'd be amazing at how much a child is learning in one learning experience!
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