My class of urban transitional kindergarten students are learning how to get along and express their needs in a social group setting, which is especially important since many of my students did not attend preschool. In addition, they are expected to develop foundational skills in reading, writing, and math!
About 50% of my kindergarteners are English language learners, and 30% are classified as Newcomers because they entered my classroom speaking very little or no English.
Our small, Title I school is located in an urban, high-poverty neighborhood in Northern California. My transitional and traditional-aged kindergarteners are eager to learn and full of energy. Many of my families are unable to take their children to the library or to provide access to lots of books at home.
My Project
My urban transitional kindergarteners learn key academic and social-emotional skills while playing math games. We have a few old, oval shaped hula hoops, but we lack circle shaped hula hoops. We will use the hula hoops to sort cards or dominoes into mathematical categories (such less than seven, equal to seven, or more than seven), to learn color names, and of course for rolling them to friends on the playground, as well as doing the classic hula hooping. The hula hoop clips will allow us to connect the hula hoops to make tunnels or targets for throwing bean bags. The storage bag will help us keep the hoops organized.
The giant foam dice are a fun way of teaching kids to count and compare the dots on each face of the dice.
The two children in each round toss one die and the class needs to count the dots and decide which die has "more, less , or if they are equal". I have one pair of large dice, but having a second set would allow us to practice adding two numbers together for comparing larger numbers.
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