Preschool and kindergarten activities take place many times throughout the day.

Circle time or teaching time as some preschool teachers call it, outdoor time, trips, extra activities like music and library etc.

The  preschool activities that I am going to address here are the ones that take place in the centers of a center based classroom during the work period.

I call the time that the children spend in the centers work period because first of all  children’s  play IS work as you can read in this piece called The Importance of Play and secondly if the centers are set up correctly the children can actually be using thinking and problem solving skills along with their play which is called work according to even traditional theories.

Ideally this is the way a good preschool and kindergarten curriculum should be run. I have a few past posts that talk about What  is  a work period and in general what an integrated curriculum is all about

Units or themes can be planned and activities that are connected to that theme can be added to the different centers. This way the whole curriculum is cohesive.

If you are homeschooling your child you can probably do a center based type of curriculum on a scaled back version but you can certainly use the center ideas and activities. (You just cant have them all going on at the same time).

Two ways to run centers

Center in a kindergarten or nursery classroom can be dealt with in 2 ways.

You can fill up each area  or center with what you want to put in and just let it sit there the whole year.

Another way is to keep changing the centers to make the learning more exciting and actually more interesting to the children.

It’s like when you take away some the children’s games and toys for a few months and then take them down again, its’ like you bought new toys and they are as excited about them as if you just purchased them.

I am going to spend time going through each center and how to get the most out of it.

In this post I will start by concentrating on the dramatic play area, or as many call it the house or housekeeping area.

It definitely can be ONLY a house area if you set it up that way and leave it as such.

It becomes a dramatic play area when you turn the area into other types of places like fire houses, doctors offices etc.

So lets begin our center talk by starting with the dramatic play area.

Dramatic Play Area

If you are an early childhood educator you must be aware of how important it is for children to be able to play and act out what is ging on in their lives.

The children learn social skills and it often helps them deal with difficult situations that are going on in their lives.

The basic set up of a dramatic play area would be the classic housekeeping stuff.

The set up will be determined by the schools budget and if you are a home schooler and want to create a small area like this in your home for your preschoolers and how much energy and creativity YOU want to put into this.

Many of the materials don’t have to be from expensive educational resources if you can find some of the things you need at home or from parents of the children.

Some of the materials you may need.

Housekeeping area

• Small table
• Children’s chairs
• Kitchen equipment like stove, sink refrigerator
• Mirror
• Small rug
• Small dolls bed
• Baby carriage
• High chair
• Dress up clothes
• Fake food
• Dishes

You should try to add the items that are common to the place you live in and common to the children s lives.

If you know that none of these children have any babies in their homes maybe you would not want to put baby paraphnelia in there.

What is considered common to a farm family in USA will not necessarily be the same as city people in South Africa

One way if integrating the centers is by allowing the children to create food and other items they may need in the art area for use in their housekeeping area.

Curriculum and the dramatic play area

Here’s where you can tie curriculum into real life.

If you are basing your unit on a trip that you took then it would be a good idea to turn the dramatic play area into that area for a certain period.

You can also listen to how the children are playing and bring in items to help them play out what they are doing anyway.

Market

You can add a

• Cash register
• Fake fruits and vegetables
• Bakets or bags that are used to carry purchases
• Step stools for stacking items
• Large boxes

Doctors office

• White coat
• Doctors kit (with stethoscope, fake needles, blood pressure cuff)
• Table, mattress or little bed for kids to be checked
• Table for receptionist
• Forms for kids to fill out

If you have any friends that are doctors you may want to ask him or her if they have any old stuff that they are not using anymore that you can use for the children

Fire Station

• Fire hats
• Hoses
• Big boots
• Homemade fire truck from boxes

I found this post about a classroom that actually set up some fire station play.

In this classroom they were actually using math skills at the same time.

Very often you don’t need need that much to transform the area into a different place for the children.

If you have children from different cultures you can even read up on the countries they come from and try to make the area a different country every few weeks or month.

I knew a teacher who used to keep boxes of items stored together for when the time arose.

If she saw the children playing Doctor, out would come the doctor box. Fire Station, out would come the fire station stuff.

The examples I gave you above may be some of the most common but if you keep your ears open and use your own creativity, I am sure you can come up with many different exciting ways to give the children fresh experiences in the dramatic play are PLUs other items to add to the ones I listed above.

This math number game got me really excited.

I had created this dice game for my kindergarten and even nursery students many years ago.

I had it in a handwritten form and I really wanted to share it with you online.

However,, I knew that if I took picture of it it wouldn’t be so clear so I played around with creating it on my computer.

First I created it with Microsoft publisher then I had to figure out how to get it into a jpeg format so I could upload it.

I finally figure it out as you can see and if you are really interested in how I did it, leave a comment and I’ll explain it, otherwise I’ll just going to explaining how this game is used.

As I’ve explained in the past, I think  every activity with math and numbers has to have something concrete to work with.

When children are beginning to learn basic math skills like numbers, one of the concepts they are learning is that each numeral stands for the amount.

Example: 3 may stand for 3 apples or 3 people or 3 ice creams.

One really fun activity that I think I got from another teacher when I was in Bank Street College is the game above.

Directions for game:

1. Each child get a dice and rolls the die
2. Whatever number is comes to, he or she has to count the dots on the die and go over to the number on the chart that it corresponds to and put an x in the box right above the numeral
3. S/he then rolls the die again and repeats the process
4. The idea is to see which number gets rolled the most
5. The first column that has xxx’s all the way up to the top is the winning number and the child gets to put that number in the winning box at the top

The children love this game. They can play it over and over again and can be done with individual children and with a  whole group.

If you are setting up a math center than his is a great place  to put this game.

You can find out more about setting up a math center in the post making math fun.

Leave the sheets on the table or area with some dice so the children can use them when they are using the center.

Most children in the early childhood years are capable of this game.

You can create this yourself simple on the computer or by hand as I did so many years ago.

If you are copying from my image just realize that I took a screen shot and there is some little marking on the image that doesn’t belong here, just ignore it.

Enjoy!

In the last post in this Math curriculum series I started out by explaining math for young children with 2 simple pattern activities to begin with.

For this post I am going to elaborate even more and am include 4 pattern activities that you can do with kindergarten age children. The truth is nursery school children can do these as well, any early childhood age works well with these materials.

The last 2 activities get a bit messy as they use pasting patterns.

1- Transferring patterns to a different form

This is a great time to use the unifix cubes if you have them handy. I mentioned unifix cubes in a previous post about making math fun as one of the few commercial math manipulatives that are great to have around.

You can do this with a group of children or one at a time.

Dump the cubes out and start clapping and snapping as we discussed in the precious post. The children can interpret these patterns you are making with the clapping and the snapping with their unifix cubes.

Of course this means that at this point you can only be using 2 colors, but that is fine to begin with.

You can do aabaabaab or aabbaabbaabb or even aaaaabaaaaabaaaaab.

After the children have made about 10-20 identical stacks, you can attach them all together and the children can snap and clap the whole pattern.

2- Pattern Block patterns

Using the pattern blocks you  can first have the children crate the same patterns that they did with the unifix cubes.

Before you begin this activity with the children cut out pieces of pattern block shapes the same as the real ones.

Have the children create new patterns with the pattern block.

Have them stand them up and give the children pieces of tagboard about  9″x3″ (28 cm x 8 cm)

Then let the children glue the appropriate pieces onto their tagboard following the pattern of the physical blocks.

3- Border Patterns

Using the pieces of construction paper you cut out in the shape of the pattern blocks, have the children create a new pattern all around the border of a piece of tagboard. Use the regular size 9×12W when they are done you can have them label each piece as in aabb or aaabbb or whatever pattern they have done.

4- Necklace Patterns

See if you can get hold of either colored straws, beads, or macaroni that you can color with1 tablespoon of alcohol and a few drops of food coloring (put in closed jar shake to coat and then let dry on newspaper overnight)

Whichever you decide to use, let children create the pattern they want by pasting the pieces down on a piece of tabgboard and then have them prop up the tagboard.

By following this pattern they can create necklaces with string you will give them.

If you are interested in takingthe concept of  patterns a bit further, I found this great video for kids that shows examples of patterns in real life that you may find interesting in giving over the concept of pattern to children.

There are actually lots of art activites that are done with rubbings to show children the patterns that exist in nature.

The truth is that teaching patterns as a mathematical concept in early childhood classrooms is not always thought of as a math concept.

Art teachers use it for pattern making and printmaking all of the time but in reality pattern is the underlying theme of math.

Learning the skill of pattern recognition helps the children solve problems and helps with the basic development of his/ her mathematical understanding. That is why I am beginning with patterns.

There are many different pattern activities that I am going to give you that you can do with your children will be ones that you can do visually with actual materials,  in auditory  form and physically with their bodies.

Children will learn to analyze, copy and extend patterns.They will then learn to verbalize their experiences. This all makes for much greater interest.

I am going to break up these posts into manageable activities and you can pick and choose which activities you will do with the children.

Clapping rhythmically:

You can start introducing children to patterns by sitting with them wither during circle time or any relaxed moment with an individual child.

Begin by clapping a pattern and have the children follow.

It can be a clap, clap, snap, snap or it can be a clap, clap, clap, snap, snap

Do a combination of these activities having the children follow them.

After a few tries, have the children think up some of their own ideas. they can incorporate, stamping, moving their heads, or any other movement that the children can think of.

Do not single out anyone that is having difficulty with this, if they are not understanding than they will get it after a series of pattern activity’s.

The Dot Chart

The second activity uses visual and written symbols.

Cut out a long rectangular pieces of cardboard and create s dot and dash pattern on it. It could be    ….–….–   or it could be    ..—..—

You can then have children come up to the large piece of cardboard and finish the pattern for you.

You can create a few of these and you can use any number of symbols aside  from dots and dashes as long as they are very simple to create.

Once the children get the hang of this, you can give them their own smaller rectangular pieces of paper and have them do their own smaller pattern repeats.

The first series you give the children should be prepared by you.

After they have mastered those. See which children are ready to create their own patterns from scratch.

Math in Early Childhood? Math in the preschool and kindergarten classroom? You bet. And fun also.

Math as every older child knows can be boring. Especially since most kids end up watching a teacher solve problems on the board while they fidget in their seats.

Math for kids has become an activity that is done purely through worksheets, workbooks and board exercises.

Which is a real pity

Math which is part of life should be learned as part of life.

Piaget discovered a few key ideas about children that helps us devise math activities for young children. In this case children in the early childhood years.

Four things Piaget taught us

1. Children see the world differently than adults do
2. Children s mental development goes through stages in a fixed sequence
3. Different children move from one stage to another at different rates.
4. Children learn best through manipulation of concrete materials.

Maybe that’s why it wasn’t until I was taking my math for teachers course in graduate school and we were learning adding and subtracting fractions with pattern blocks that all of a sudden it clicked for me. (15 years too late)

So what this series is about in a nutshell is this:

I am going to be giving you a full math curriculum for Early Childhood Education in many forms.

You will be getting ideas, circle time activities, worksheets that tie directly into concrete activities, games and activities to do in a math center, all designed to make math fun and relevant to what they are learning.

If you have a center based classroom adding a math center is a great place to set up many of these activities for the children to explore during their work period.

The math center can simply be a table that is set up in a corner of the classroom where you will need storage space nearby to store all of the materials that you will make, collect or buy.

If you are doing this in  a homeschooling environment you will probably just need the storage space as you can convert any table to a math center.

Many of the activities that you will get to do with the children will be homemade by you and I will be showing you what to make.

There are however 3 different items that I feel are vital for many of the activities that we will do and you can decide if you want to purchase starter kits or full sets for your early childhood math curriculum.

These 3 items are

Cuisinaire rods

Interlocking Unit Cubes(unifix cubes)

Plastic Pattern Blocks (Set of 250)

As I will be giving you activities that will deal with these items you may want to have them on hand.

Topics I hope to cover in this series are:

• Sorting and classification
• Seriation
• Number
• Patterns
• Measurement(length and weight)
• Beginning addition and subtraction
• Graphing

I hope to give you lots of math activities that you can do in the block area as well.

As I said the activities will be varied and useful for different parts of your daily interaction with the children.

Before you add to the Math Center

There are a few things to be considered before adding an activity to your math center.

1. It’s a good idea to introduce the activity and procedures for the math center in your circle time with the children. Or just discuss with small groups of children.
2. You need to make sure that the children have some experience  with the skill you are going to introduce in the center so that they will be successful when doing these independent activities.
3. Try to plan activities which can be used over a long period of time and that can be done over and over again.
4. You cannot leave one activity for too long as the interest in the center will wane.
5. Games, puzzles and other mathematical activities can remain at the center on a shelf for reuse over and over again.
6. Allow the children free exploration of the materials before giving them the activity directly.

In my next post I will begin by giving you actual real ideas that you can start implementing instantly with your children.

You do not have to wait until I finish this whole series before you begin trying out the activities. They are fun and educational, independent of each other.