Kindergarten, Math, Week 4

Monday I introduced the Thermometer. Concept: Thermometers tell us the temperature. If the red line goes up, it means warmer; if it goes down, it means colder.

• First we went outside and read the thermometer: 60 degrees F
• Then we read the food thermometer from the kitchen shelf: 70 degrees F
• Next, I got a science thermometer out. This is glass and about 18 inches long, but has a mark for each number, so we didn't have to count by 2's (which we haven't learned to do yet), but it was in Celsius, so I had to explain that there are 2 different measuring systems. With this thermometer we:
• saw the room temperature
• then I had K. wrap her had around it (line went up)
• then we put it in cold tap water (line went down)
• then we added an ice cube to the water (line went down)
• then we stuck the thermometer in ice cream (line went down to -10 C)

Tuesday we measured with a Cup and talked about less than, equal to, and more than.

• I put out a mostly empty bag of M & Ms and K. put them in the measuring cup. There weren't enough to fill the cup, so it was less than a cup.
• Then I got out some dry noodles. K. filled the cup to overflowing, so there was more than a cup.
• Then she measured dry oatmeal and it filled the cup exactly, so it was equal to a cup.
• I poured cheese crackers into a bowl until K. thought it was equal to a cup, then she filled the cup and discovered there was more than a cup in the bowl.
• Last, I poured water into a liquid measuring cup and had her tell me when it got to the 1 cup mark.

Wednesday we did Solid Shapes again.

• I set the timer for 1 minute and we went around the house finding as many rectangle solids as we could before the timer went off. We repeated this for each shape except the cube, because we haven't been able to find cubes in our house.
• I made a bingo game, putting items that are each shape on the playing cards (25 squares). Then printed out cards, some have the word and some have pictures. Shuffle these, place them upside down, take turns turning one over and put a marker on the shape on the playing card. First one with 5 in a row wins.

Thursday we played a different version of the Identifying Numbers Game.

• We covered all the numbers with pennies
• Then took turns, taking 1 penny at a time off the sheet and reading the number.
• We played until we both had 3 rows of 10 pennies.

Friday we worked with Time.

• I made a clock that included the minute marks.
• We had worked with time before, so we reviewed:
• Hour hand
• Minute hand
• I set the clock to an hour (7:00) and she told me the time. We did this about 8 times, then we reversed and she set the hands and I told her the time.
• Then we counted the minute marks on the clock and I wrote the numbers (0 - 60) as we counted them. Learning that there are 60 minutes in an hour.