A great activity!!!

I did a great activity with my class. I gave each child a piece of blue construction paper. We pretended that it was the ocean. Each of the unfix cubes was a different sea creature. We put one green octopus in our ocean. Two red crabs, etc. I was working on review of colors and number quantity. I only worked on numbers one through five. This is what I am focusing on at this time. At the beginning of the activity I just said what to put in their ocean. Then together as a group we counted the objects. Towards the end of the activity I wrote the number on a dry erase board, to show them the number that corresponded with the quantity.

My students loved the activity. The loved to pretend that the paper was the ocean. As a follow up activity the next day I gave them a blue piece of paper and they drew sea creatures on it. Each child got to decide what they wanted to draw. At the bottom I had typed a sentence, I drew __ _____ in my ocean. The child wrote the number and then I had printed out the name of the sea creature and they glued the name of the sea creature in the sentence. I worked one-on-one and we pointed and read their sentence together. My students are beginning to learn numbers one through five.

What kind of learner are you?

A couple of weeks ago I had parent teacher conferences. I was able to meet with some of the parents of the kindergarten students. I asked them about their child's number sense knowledge. Most of them said that they practiced numbers at home but were not consistent about it. I asked them how their child learned best and most of them said that their child was a visual learner. I had a couple of parents that said that their child was an auditory learner. All the parents agreed that the kindergarten classroom was very effective for their child to learn in. At my school the kindergarten students stay all day. The parents really like this learning environment. Many of them are thankful for the teacher and the academic support of the classroom.



I have a lot of ideas for my project. Kindergarten students are really active and have a short attention span. As I design my lessons I want them to get their whole body involved. I have found that this helps them retain new knowledge. I want to use manipulatives to help them connect the actual number to the quantity. I also want to have them practice writing the number. I think something that stuck out to me from the parents was that they were not consistent. My challenge is to be consistent in my project so that my students are able to have a strong foundation in numbers one through ten.

Wow, a new adventure has begun!!!

I can not believe that we are beginning our sixth week of school! It has flown by. I have begun a new adventure, teaching 3rd grade. For the last eight years I have taught Kindergarten and I loved it. I can tell you, I LOVE 3rd GRADE!!! My kids are independent and I only have 20 kids. I love teaching 3rd grade. It has it's own challenges but I love the new adventure that I am on. My project will continue to focus on Kindergarten students. My eight years of experience is in Kindergarten and last year I did all my research in my Kindergarten classroom. I also completed my Review of Literature last semester so, I will continue to write my project focusing on number sense in Kindergarten.

What is the context for your action research? What are your research questions and why did you decide to investigate them?

The context of my action research is number sense specifically numbers one through ten. I want to develop a manual for teaching numbers one through ten. My hope is that the manual will be hands-on. I have seen that kids remember more when their whole body is involved. The research question that I would like to investigate is, How can I effectively teach numbers one through ten in a Kindergarten classroom? I am passionate about teaching mathematics. I have seen that math is quickly taught and many times it is taught with the textbook and worksheets and teachers do not utilize hands-on activities. I want to change the teaching methods and focus on hands-on. Last semester I took a look at the standardized test scores for my school and I was disappointed to see that my school scored poorly in the area of mathematics. I also did research about the United States and teaching mathematics and found that the United States was poor in this area. My passion for writing my project in the area of number sense grew as I researched more.

The MAT focuses on social justice and multicultural curriculum. How is your research related to these?

This is one of the things that I am working on. I believe that part of the focus of my project is to provide equal opportunity to all students which would be social justice. How can I present numbers utilizing multicultural focus. I believe that this is one of the areas that I need to do more research and also look deeper into what I am trying to provide for my students.

What results have you found from your study? Did they surprise you? What do you think they did or didn't?

My study has proved that mathematics is an area of weakness in the United States. I also have found that at my school mathematical retention is low. I was surprised at the results of our school. Math is universal in all languages so I thought that the scores would be higher. Although the focus of our school has been in Language Arts so maybe our test results are showing that we need to focus more in the area of mathematics.

How will your study influence your future practice?

I love teaching. I believe that my study makes me a more well rounded teacher. I have seen what is effective and what is not. I also have seen the power of multicultural curriculum and the positive influence that it has on students. But I have also seen how it takes time and effort to make it effective in the classroom. Change takes time and also I need to be sensitive to those that I work with. They may or may not be willing to change. I need to make positive changes in my classroom and hope that others will make the same changes.

I know that this is the just the beginning of my project. I have more research to do and a lot of refining and designing. I am confident that this is going to be a great adventure!