Math Station
Math Station
MATH CENTER
As a teacher assistant in a kindergarten classroom, the instruction at the beginning of the year
focuses on the basic foundational skills required to progress through language arts and math
instruction. The most basic skill required as the student progresses through school includes
number recognition and one to one correspondence. Without mastering these concepts, students
can find progressing through mathematics instruction difficult or impossible. A student not being
able to recognize a three from an eight and the value of each number will approach standards of
counting to one hundred, addition, and subtraction impossible.
In addition, making learning fun and interactive for students can ignite and encourage a
positive attitude towards learning. Often students arrive to the first day of kindergarten with
great excitement and looking for fun. However, past stations of pretend play in a kitchen,
painting, and sandboxes have given way to stations with deeper learning opportunities connected
to objectives. The challenge for kindergarten classrooms across the country is to provide fun
activities which meet the learning objectives required in education today. The following station
originally taught in small group instruction in order to model the successful use of the activity
was created to meet both the educational standards our students required and the fun of learning
they enjoy.
This station allows students to be paired for cooperative learning. Also, the students who are
tactile and visual learners will find success with counting each card of spiders and the timeline as
a support while auditory learners will find success by hearing their partner call out the number
selected and count aloud from the card of spiders. When the station is paired with an initial
small or whole group instruction including the book Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews, the
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student is modeled how to count up to ten and providing a visual representation of a group of
something equaling a number.
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Proficient
Developing Proficient
Novice
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This station can be used in a variety of ways. I initially began the activity within a small
group reading the book Ten Black Dots Donald Crews. I used this to model the process of
counting one to one making sure the students understood that my finger hopped to a new dot
each time I said a number. This also allowed me to make connections for some students between
the Spanish and English vocabulary of numbers such as uno, dos, tres and one, two, three to
insure comprehension.
Following the reading of the book, the game was played in two to three rounds with students
encouraged to use a number line to assist in identifying the number selected from a bag. Once
the student found success in identifying the number, I could assist them counting a variety of
index cards based on what they thought might be the correct one. This allowed students to begin
to make a connection between smaller numbers had smaller number of spiders while larger
numbers had larger number of spiders- key components to finding more and less than later on.
The part that made the kids laugh and enjoy the activity the most was I provided them a small
swatter so they would swat the spiders when they had selected the correct number!
I find that school so often has lost the fun I recalled from my childhood and it is important to
me, my students be held accountable for behavior and procedures, engaged in strong instruction,
yet receive compassion and love from me along with my best efforts to make that learning fun
whenever possible. This math station expects my students to be responsible when playing the
game (especially by allowing the swatter) yet allows them to enjoy some fun with their learning.
I also believe in getting the most out of my efforts. I was also able to use this station with
a language arts objective in my small group. I replaced the cards in the map with letters and
had the students find the letter that made the sound I was making.
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