Ep 42: Kindergarten Building Thinking Classrooms Math Tasks

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Today I'm going to talk about five building thinking classroom tasks that are perfect for kindergarten.

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Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Make Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,

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specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense of their

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students. I have been working on developing tasks for kindergarten, which can be a bit of a challenge

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to find tasks that are appropriate for kindergarten, but also will keep them going. A lot of times,

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you know, problem solving or more simple problem solving is kind of like one student finishes or

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one group finishes and the rest are kind of like twiddling their thumbs like I'm not sure what to do,

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or you have half that finish, half that don't finish, and then you're managing kids who don't

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have anything to do and kids who are still working. So I feel like that's the balance, that's the

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challenge that I've been finding, but I think I have a solution for you. So I kind of broke off

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into two kind of categories of tasks. There was the story driven task and the more challenge-y

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driven tasks, because I don't know about your kindergartners, but if I told them it was a

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challenge, they were into it, they wanted to do it. Counting and number writing can be something

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that kids don't necessarily want to work on, but definitely need to work on to develop their number

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sense. So this kind of strand or this kind of goal is perfect for a storytelling task so that kids can

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really get into it and think of it as more of a story, more of a math adventure than just extra

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practice. So for this one, it kind of, they, for this task, they kind of go together. The background

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story is that the possum pups playhouse dogs knocked over the treats and the kids have to figure out

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how many treats were eaten by the dogs. So on their recording sheet, they'll have 10 frames that they

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have to count and figure out how many treats were eaten by each dog. So they have counting in and

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number writing in, because all of those dogs have names, so it's something to keep them going so

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it's not like they're just writing one number and then waiting for something to do. They have a whole

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set of dogs and dog treats that they're looking at and counting so that if groups finish, they have

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something else to do and if kids are taking a little longer to get started, that's absolutely

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fine too. They can look around the room, they can use their partner and really get the practice that

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they need and it's helpful to have someone else there to listen to the kids count because you

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can't be there all of the time. As far as the check your understanding piece, I kind of ping-pong back

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and forth between a traditional extra question or a game that kind of reinforces the learning that

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they've done depending on the topic. So this task, the possum pups playhouse task, would be one where

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they would have a game to go with it. So the game has a spinner on it and they would spin and figure

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out how many dog treats there are, so they would have to record that number on a 10 frame or vice

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versa. They would spin and see how many treats there are and have to write the number. So it works

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either way and that way kids are getting practice counting and number writing together with a theme

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to get a little more engagement and a little more student buying. The next task is called toy trouble.

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So in this one, the kids and their friends have just had a blast playing with all the toys but now

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it's time to clean them up and to clean them up they need to sort them. Sorting is another tricky

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one because ideally they would be sorting real things and get that practice but when that can't

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happen a task like this works really well. So in this one their recording sheet shows whichever

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toys they're trying to look at and they need to figure out how many of each toy there is and this

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is perfect for the idea of sorting, kind of putting like things together and eventually working on

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graphing or kind of the basis they need to be able to organize and graph data. The thin slicing for

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this task is once they finish the first one they'll have a different sheet that has more items so it

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starts with just two different toys that they're sorting moving to three and if they're really

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they're really on it they really want to keep going then they can practice sorting four different

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items. The next tasks don't necessarily have a story but get at skills that they need to be working

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on in a way that's a little bit different than a traditional math station or math center time. The

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first one is composing shapes. So in this one they have different challenges that they will create so

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composing larger shapes from smaller shapes using pattern blocks. So it might be something simple

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like create a hexagon and if they've played with pattern blocks a lot that might not be something

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that's too challenging for them to start off with and then it gets more complicated such as

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creating a house or creating a rocket ship something like that that they will be into and it's kind of

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something else for them to keep going with so it's not like one task they're done and then kind of

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twiddling their thumbs wondering what to do next. In a similar vein we have the longer and shorter

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tasks so some of these math standards are harder to find tasks for so this is kind of more mobile

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and moving around. So each student will have a pencil and they have to figure out which items in

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the classroom are longer or shorter than their pencil so this one might not necessarily be

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right at their whiteboard they could do it at their whiteboard and kind of go back and forth

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or they could use a clipboard and move around the room measuring different things with their

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partner to figure out which one is longer or shorter than their pencil and this one similar

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to a previous one kind of has a game as a wrap-up versus a check your understanding so it's kind of

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a different way to apply the skills that they're using so for this one they will have a spinner

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that tells them how many cubes they should make their tower and then each time they make a new

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tower they compare it to a marker that's on the page and then decide if it is longer or shorter

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so in a similar vein but they're using units it's getting a little bit more challenging and they can

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do it on their own with a partner or if they really like it you can add this to your math centers.

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The next one is called the mystery bag so in this task you tell your kids that there is a mystery bag

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that has one base 10 rod and an unknown amount of cubes so they have to figure out how many cubes

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could be in that mystery bag so they're starting to group their teen numbers thinking about 10

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and some more so this is definitely something that you would use more towards the end of the

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school year when they're working on teen numbers to understand that teen numbers are a group of 10

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and some more so similarly to the previous ones it's more of a challenge task to see how many

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different ways can you create a new number with a 10 rod and some extra cubes and again this check

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your understanding piece has three different versions of a similar game where they would spin

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figure out how many cubes there are and write the number that goes with it. I have not one but two

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bonus tasks for you to try. The next one is called cash out so this is another story-based task where

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your students are working at the grocery store but the cash registers are down so your students have

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to get the receipts of the customers which are on the recording sheet and figure out how much each

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customer owes because they don't have the cash registers anymore they're going to have to figure

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out how many there are and this opens up a great opportunity for your students to explore a lot of

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different addition strategies so they might be counting on they might use manipulative and more

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so that is a quick fun task that your students can do and the last bonus one is for decomposing

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numbers so again adding a little bit of mystery so it's not a story but something that's classroom

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related you'll tell your students that you have five crayons hidden inside your desk and some of

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them might be yellow and some of them might be red so for this one they're working on decomposing

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numbers to five and trying to figure out how many of the crayons in your desk could be red or could

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be yellow and at the end to really clinch the buy-in you can show them the crayons that you

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hit in your desk if you really want to hide some in your desk and then they can figure out if they

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were right or if they were wrong so there you have it seven different tasks that you might try with

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your students if you want more information you can always check the show notes down below i'll have

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a blog listed with pictures and so you can get a better idea of what these tasks will look like

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and if you try any make sure to let me know you can find my instagram handle also in the show notes

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i would love to hear how they went for your students and what other tasks you're looking for

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what standards are you trying to hit with more math tasks