Teaching Number Sense in Kindergarten

Kindergarten Number Sense Outcomes

1.1: count in a variety of ways

1.2: explore a variety of physical representations of numbers 1-10

1.3: count to determine the number in a group

1.4: create sets of a given number

1.5: show a given number as two parts concretely and name the two parts

1.6: determine which group has more, which has less, or which are equivalent

1.7: use symbols to represent numbers in a variety of meaningful ways

 While our understanding of number sense begins at birth, when we count our baby's fingers and toes out loud (1:1 correspondence), as Kindergarteners, we are still in the early learning stages of number sense. With this in mind, we attempt to make our learning as holistic and realistic as possible. So we sing songs, we use concrete objects. It's a very hands on, brain on, learning process, but one that will take us a long way in understanding numbers.

Teaching and reinforcing number sense in the classroom is always embedded into our daily routine. From singing songs, to predicting how many people are present and absent, to playing a game, to reading stories, to our "Countdown to 5/10" at the end of the day, we are constantly exposed to number sense. It's through these real life experiences that we truly begin to see that numbers do make sense in our everyday life. By using routines to reinforce number sense, we allow the students to make their own connections, and when they can make their own connections, the learning is more authentic. If it's through our life experiences that we learn, then how much more important is it that our teaching give our students life experience?

While singing songs like, "Farmer Brown Has 5 Green Apples" we use props, and we have a "Farmer Brown". Through this, we are reinforcing the idea of 'taking away', and we have real life examples right in front of us.

Usually, during the hockey playoffs, we will take all of the teams that have made it and we keep track of the wins and losses of each series.
Since, right now, it is baseball playoff time, and both my favourite team, the Chicago Cubs, and Canada's favourite team, the Toronto Blue Jays, are in the playoffs, I decided to keep track of each one's wins and losses. It helps that baseball playoffs go to 5 games since we are learning about numbers 1-5 right now.
Through this activity, we are reinforcing outcomes 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to add a loss to both the Blue Jays and the Cubs. Hopefully, before the weekend is over, I'll be able to add some wins too!