EARLY CHILDHOOD

Everyday Mathematics

People rarely master a new skill the first time they attempt it. For this reason, repeated exposure to key mathematical ideas over time is built into the Pre-Kindergarten program, usually in slightly different contexts for each new exposure. To coincide with children’s development, the activities of each strand begin at a simple level and increase in complexity with children’s experience. The interwoven design ensures that an activity is not “finished” the first time it is encountered, but recurs periodically for further consideration and exploration. The activities of the program are designed around eight mathematical content strands.

*Numeration-One of the goals of Pre-Kindergarten Everyday Mathematics is for children to be able to count and read numbers to 20 by the end of Pre-k. Children learn at different rates; thus some will not meet this goal while others will exceed it by the end of the school year. All children will make progress and increase in competence with oral counts, recognizing numbers, and perhaps even writing number symbols to record counts and measures.

 

*Measurement-The matching and comparing that children do naturally as they build with blocks, play store, dress dolls, and sift sand into containers of various sizes are necessary beginning steps toward understanding the measure units used for the main everyday types of measure: length, weight, volume or capacity, and elapsed time. Most children’s ideas about actual sizes of measurements are quite vague at this age. As the students gain more measuring experiences, they will begin to develop more accurate notions and will become more alert to measuring possibilities in real-life situations and stories.

 

*Geometry-Many children come to pre-kindergarten familiar with the names of simple shapes. The Everyday Mathematics program seeks to build on this prior knowledge and to prepare children for future analysis of the properties of and relationships among shapes. To accomplish this, children are given many varied experiences with those shapes—playing, tracing, drawing, and constructing. Children also have time to play with and explore materials before they use them in more structured activities. Children are encouraged to become aware of the geometric shapes all around us.

 

*Operations-Operations are the things we “do” to or with numbers. For two numbers, order relations express whether one is equal to, less than, or greater than the other. In Everyday Mathematics, the emphasis is on using operations and relations in solving concrete problems that arise from children’s daily life in the classroom. Children make up their own number story while increasing their mathematical vocabulary.

 

*Patterns and Functions-A unifying feature of many of the games and activities in the program that involve patterns, functions, and sequences is that they are rule-bound. Patterns are sets of elements that repeat in regular, predictable ways. Children begin to see patterns in classroom floor tiles, rows of chairs, and in leaves and flowers. Attribute activities involve sorting collections by “rules,” for example, selecting a group of children by some attribute, such as those wearing something red.

 

*Money- Money provides a natural link to the world of mathematics, because most young children already recognize its importance in their everyday lives. Many young children have relatively few opportunities to use money in real-world situations. They need to play with coins in order to become familiar with their physical properties. As they learn to distinguish among coins, they can begin to assign values to them. Pre-kindergarten is a good place to start thinking about money. There is no doubt that interest and motivation are already high. Students are given many opportunities to play with real coins as well as realistic play coins.

 

*Clocks and Calendars-The concepts of telling time and measuring time duration within the framework of calendars and clocks are not easy for young children to grasp. Many children come to pre-kindergarten with bits and pieces of the whole. They may refer to days, weeks, hours, minutes, and seconds, but their understanding of the duration of each of these units of measure is very different from an adult’s understanding of time. This program includes many everyday activities that help them develop a sense of sequential order as well as timed activities to help them develop a sense of duration.

 

*Data and Chance-Collecting, organizing, and presenting data in tables and graphs have become increasingly important in our complex world. Even young children can participate in gathering information, displaying it, and making counts and comparisons. The process always begins with a question. For pre-kindergarten children, the most meaningful questions are those connected with real situations in the classroom and with collecting information that directly concerns them.

Everyday Mathematics also incorporates problem solving, estimation skills and number sense, communication, labels and units, and the concept of reversibility of most actions.

Games are an important part of the Everyday Mathematics program. They allow children to discover ideas and to develop an understanding of mathematics concepts at their own pace. They provide opportunities for the playful practice of mathematics skills as well as put children in a position to learn from and teach one another as they play.

 The year-end learning goals in pre-kindergarten are optimistic about children’s capabilities and willingness to learn. The following are the year-end learning goals for pre-kindergarten:

*Recognizes numbers 0-10

*Performs rote counting 1-20

*Counts 1 to 10 objects, actions, or sounds

*Forms groups of 0 to 10 objects and matches the correct number to each group

*Arranges groups of objects and matches the correct number to each group

*Compares groups of objects to determine more, less, or same/equal to using one-to-one correspondence

*Participates in solving simples addition and subtraction number stories by joining and removing objects

*Sorts and classifies objects by their attributes

*Recognizes, copies, extends, and generates patterns

*Locates objects using position and direction words, such as next to and behind

*Compares and sorts geometric shapes by common attributes

*Recognizes, identifies, and describes 2- and 3-dimensional shapes

*Compares and orders objects by size, weight, height, and length

*Uses comparison words, such as heavier/lighter and longer/shorter

*Uses nonstandard measurement to determine height and length

*Identifies and compares coins by size and markings

*Sequences events using time concepts, such as morning/afternoon/night

*Explores the purpose and use of clocks and calendars

 Spalding Program

Preschool children love to listen to rhymes and participate in word play. Four-year-olds can learn to say the sounds correctly, and five-year-olds can learn to say and write the sounds. Reading to children and discussing with them what is read expands their oral vocabulary, background knowledge, and communication skills. Beginners need to understand that spoken words and syllables consist of sequences of speech sounds. This understanding is essential for learning to read an alphabetic language because alphabet letters and letter combinations represent basic speech sounds. Young children love to play with words. Through informal activities such as listening and responding to rhymes, children develop awareness that consist of individual sounds. Children at this age develop at different rates; therefore mastery of the phonograms is not part of the pre-school Spalding Program. Students are introduced to the phonograms in pre-school and will see them again in kindergarten and first grade. Students are expected to master all 70 phonograms by the end of first grade. As we know, young children’s minds are like sponges and the earlier they are exposed to new concepts, the easier it is for them later to understand and apply those concepts.

Science/Social Studies 

In the pre-kindergarten classes, science is taught through inquiry. Students are exposed to scientific concepts during various units such as: weather, plants, animals, seasons, the five senses and cooking. Pre-k students go to Science Lab once a week in addition to their science activities in the classroom.

Social Studies in pre-kindergarten is primarily focused on the students, their families, their community and the world around them. A cultural awareness unit at the end of the year exposes students to a culture different from their own in another part of the world.

Art

Pre-k students learn about art and complete art projects in the classroom through thematic units as well as during weekly art classes in the Art Lab. Students learn about colors, lines, shapes, and mixed media during Art Lab. 

Technology

Over the past 20-25 years the use of computers in our jobs and daily lives has increased exponentially.  Computers and related technology now permeate almost every facet of modern life and the development of new technology and applications continues to increase. In this short period of time we have seen a complete transformation in the way our society operates and there is no reason to think that this trend will not continue.  The purpose of an education is to give students the basic knowledge and literacy to continue to learn and function productively in our society. Certainly "computer literacy" must be part of that education so that students gain at an early age an understanding of that technology and the ability to keep up with the changes that will come. Computer skills and understanding are as important to our children as reading, writing and arithmetic were as we were growing up, and should be included in core curriculum from the beginning.