Math Everyday with Everyday Math

Our math curriculum is built around the mathematic program called Everyday Math. One of the key math activities each day is the calendar report. We record the date including the month, day and year, along with the day of the month in tally marks. We graph the weather each day and count the number of days we have been in school. Today is Day 40 of kindergarten. We practice saying the days of the week and will be including the months of the year soon. We also read the schedule for the day.
Most of the calendar activities are directed by the two calendar captains, a class job that rotates weekly.

Calendar Captains, Brianna and Duran, update the calendar each day this week.

Leading us into addition and subtraction, our lessons have included activities with More and Less.  Activities include dominos, number cards and comparing items in the classroom such as, there are more girls and less boys, or there are more books and less clocks.  These activities help build a foundation for addition and subtraction, while developing a number sense.

Franco and Ava use dominos to compare more and less.

As we move into the teen numbers the children have added 11 - 20 to their number cards.  We take every opportunity to count beyond ten.  Last week we tallied 45 items donated to the Salvation Army Homeless shelter's pantry.  What a teachable moment to use tally marks. Today the children partnered up to demonstrate what 11 - 20 looks like with our fingers.  One partner held up tens fingers while the other partner held up one finger so the pair together made eleven fingers. We continued for all the numbers up to 20. We practiced using our strong thumbs to hold the remaining fingers and stretching tall the ones needed to make 8 and 9, along with 18 and 19.

Forty-five tallies for us, forty-five food items donated to the Salvation Army Shelter pantry.

Jake and Nicholas partner to display the teen numbers. Here is what 17 looks like.

As our work with patterns continues, the children will move from AB patterns to AABB and other varieties that repeat themselves 3 times to display the pattern fully. We are making patterns using colors, shapes, sizes, objects, numbers, and letters. These lessons develop concepts that will help them later to understand skip counting.

In the classroom we often transition to line or to a new lesson with activities that practice these concepts.  It offers great mental math opportunities and fills a minute or two with a learning activity while taking turns.

While our focus for math lessons is early in the morning, math activities are often sprinkled throughout the day. Not only do we have math everyday, but we have math related activities integrated with our other lessons during the rest of the day.