Daily Math Routine

 I'm trying to strengthen my daily math activities.  I have always had a "healthy" serving of math during our morning calendar time.  We count the days in the month, recite the days of the week, count the days we've been in school (both with a 100s chart and a hundreds, tens, and ones pocket chart), and graphed the daily weather.







This year, I added a daily attendance count.  Currently, we're waiting until our math time after lunch to daily take attendance.  This attendance isn't what is turned into the office- this is really just a head count routine for my class.  We take the stick of unifix cubes and pass the stick of 20 all the way around our circle.  We count as each student takes a cube off.  Then, to double check our math, we count as we rebuild the attendance stick.  We make sure to make note of the students who are missing (none so far- perfect attendance-WOOT WOOT).

I'm considering adding another routine to our math time.  My mother gave me this really big container that used to hold pretzels.  It's huge- really!  To give you an idea of scale, there are about 10 baby food cups stacked together inside of the jar.  I'm going to make a label, slap it on that container and call it our "Counting Jar."  Each day, we can count something different.  I'm seeing this as more than just for counting though- think about how my kiddos can reach deeper into their minds to think about capacity! 

Mathematician's Chair

Math instruction in my room includes a variety of methods.  I use hands on manipulatives with a whole group, followed by small group hands on practice.  I also use math journals with my students.  I haven't decided when the math journaling should take place, at the beginning of our math time to activate math thinking or at the end of our math instruction, to act as the closer.  Any suggestions? 

I'm giving math journals a revival in my classroom.  I tried them my second year of teaching and wasn't able to stick with the routine.  One of my new school year resolutions is to give math journaling a second go.  While browsing the internet, I found a great resources from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten- a freebie download of math journal labels, 5 writing prompts, and an example of her use of math journals in the classroom.

The night before school started, I created a "Mathematician's Chair."  While back to school shopping in my parents' storage above the garage, I found an old plastic patio chair.  I thought this would be a perfect addition to my classroom (mostly because it was free).  I originally was just going to spray paint it and call it a day.  But when I committed to having math journals, I knew my math journaling time would conclude with a time of sharing.  I found a combination of foam sticky numbers and shapes and wood chip numbers and used fabulous E6000 glue to attach them to the chair.  Then I spray painted away with one of my favorites- SILVER spray paint!  It looks splotchy in the picture but I promise it looks better in person- it's just difficult to get a good picture of it.  

As I intro math journaling, I'll be taking my time with it- I want to be successful and I know that in kindergarten, if you start things slowly and habitually, it becomes routine.  I'll keep you posted on my adventures in math journaling!