Everyday Math

We're a developmental preschool, proud of our learning through play philosophy, so math isn't really part of our "curriculum"...or is it?

Counting chips to the roll of a die

Sorting leaves

Exploring height and balance

Using basic shapes to build three dimensional structures

As Remy asked me today, "Is it a shape or is it a cube?"

Measuring length for Me Doll hair

Only Annabelle's face truly gives meaning to this construction...Wow!

How many marbles are enough?

How many can this structure hold inside?

Find Five Fast requires identifying the one object on 5 different cards that is the same

How much stuffing will I need to fill this doll?

I'm reading a wonderful book, "It's the Camaraderie" A History of Parent Cooperative Preschools which mentions us many times.  I love these quotes about play and learning...

                  Up to the age of six, the child is usually fully occupied with learning from actual    
                        experience; he is busily taking in ideas from the world about him, he is gaining
                        information by means of his own questionings of grown up people--he is
                        experimenting with his limbs, his senses, his hands, in a thousand ways"

                  In play, as opposed to a task situation, a child is not trying to understand or
                        interpret what an adult wants him to do.  He is relatively free to respond to
                        the materials in his own way.  In so doing, he reveals spontaneous tendencies to
                        group and arrange objects"


And a little inspiration from Bev Bos for our tireless cooping parents:

                  "A sense of joy can be found in the aching tiredness
            at the end of the day for children, teachers, and
            parents who have spent their day together"