I visited the kindergarten class at Garden City twice over January and February, introducing different routines to develop number sense and to investigate numbers. Teacher Lori Williams had initially asked me to come to her class to introduce counting collections to her students and after that lesson, I suggested some other routines or practices she might try with her students.

To introduce counting collections to the class, the students and I sat in a circle together. The class’ “special helper” and I counted a collection in different ways, taking suggestions from the suggestions. I intentionally modelled working together as a “team” – taking turns, taking on different roles (one of us moving the items, the other counting, etc) and having each of us support each other when we were unsure or “stuck”. We counted a collection by 1s in different ways – each of us placing an item in a container taking turns while counting, putting the items in a line and counting them together, moving the items from one pile to another taking turns counting as we moved the items one by one. I asked the students if they could think of any other ways they might count their collections and they had some new ideas as well as some suggesting that they count by 2s or 10s. Pairs of students then went off to choose a collection to count, with the expectation that they count it in at least two or three different ways.

The students and I came together after about 30 minutes of counting and I invited some pairs of students to share what they counted and how they counted their collections. I encouraged the students to listen and make connections in their mind as to how they had counted their collections.

For my next visit, I introduced the clothesline and explained that it was another way to investigate counting, particularly ordering numbers.

The students took turns placing different representations of numbers on the clothesline – they were asked to explain their placement decisions. We followed this routine with an invitation to investigate ordering and sequencing numbers using a variety of materials.

The students were creative in their use of materials and the inspiration of the materials often nudged them beyond their familiar counting range and what the curricular expectation are for kindergarten in BC (number concepts, including counting from 0-10).

For the classroom teacher, this was a time to notice her students engaging in new routines with different materials and to think about how she might incorporate them into her classroom. It is always a conundrum for kindergarten teachers – there are always more materials to add to the classroom but we also have to let things go and put things away, even if temporarily, to create open access to the materials students will use regularly and purposefully.

~Janice