Lorien is my best friend's youngest daughter. She turned five in March and is starting Kindergarten in August. I have been working with her during this past year to make sure she is ready for Kindergarten: in the reading department, I think she will be ahead of her peers. She's still struggling a bit with number recognition, and I've been struggling with how to reinforce what she knows.
I've come to believe in the last several years that the more senses you experience a concept with, the better you will learn it. So I decided that making numbers out of Play-Doh would be a good activity for her.
The conversation on my part went something like this:
What's the first number we need to make? (Wish I had started with zero. Ah, well.)
Ok, that's good! You're right, a one is just a straight up and down line.
Let's put this over here (her far left) so we have room for everyone.
What's the next number? Here, use this to make the two. (I hand her a snake, she makes an attempt.)
That's close! Let's trace in the air how we would write a two. (trace together.)
Ok, so there's a hump going this way, and it comes down, then there's a line. (I re-shaped the two as I was saying this.)
(she then spontaneously moves the Play-Doh two next to the one.)
(she also spontaneously says "THREE!!!!" before I ask what's next.)
(I hand her a snake and she attempts a three. She's close.)
That's good! It's almost perfect. Let's trace in the air how we make a three. (trace together.)
Ok so it's two humps, right? (here I reshape her three.) [and so on through nine.]
I hope this gives a good idea of the way to positively interact and keep this activity fun.
My stock answer when students are way off is "Well . . ." and then usually a statement of the answer I was looking for. The important thing when a child makes a mistake during a learning activity is to acknowledge the mistake, but in a neutral way - there doesn't have to be emotion assigned to it. Just "Well . . . actually it goes this way" or the like.
After we made numbers one through nine (and throughout the activity she would spontaneously count up with the numbers we had already made), I took out a foam number puzzle. I gave the numbers to her one by one, and out of order. First I asked her to tell me the name of the number she was holding. Then I asked her to put it below the matching Play-Doh number.
I was pleased when she spontaneously told me that we could turn the "nine" puzzle piece around and make it a "six." This is a concept that has been confusing her!
This is, of course, just a supplementary activity which builds on many other interactions with concepts of numbers.
Summary of my multi-sensory learning thoughts:
- the more senses you experience a concept with, the better you will learn the concept
- be aware of adding layers of sensory distraction into the activity that aren't meaningful
Summary of my general teaching thoughts:
- the important thing when a child makes a mistake during a learning activity is to acknowledge the mistake, but in a neutral way - there should not be an emotion assigned to the interaction
Comments