Evidence of Thinking Mathematically

 

The students are becoming very familiar with graphing and explaining what the graph shows us. Many of the students understand we have to count the two categories to find out which has the most and which has less. They are very comfortable with a number being more or higher than another number, or being lower or less than a number.

 

Then we moved onto proving our mathematical thinking. The students were asked how they knew one number was bigger, higher or larger than another. I am amazed at their mathematical explanations and thinking. I have a number of examples below for you to view. Remember we are talking about 4 and 5 year old students.

 

 

In one of the examples one category had 10 and the other had 6. One of the girls explained she knew 10 was a bigger number because it was a two digit number and 6 is only a one digit number, and two digit numbers are more than one digit numbers.

 

When there were 8 and 4 one of the boys explained, 8 is more because it takes 4 and then 4 more to make 8 but 4 is just 4.

 

Another boy explained it as, when I count I say 4 but then I count more for 8 because I say 5, 6, 7 and 8.

 

Another boy explained it as, 8 is more than 6 because there is 7 in the middle of 6 and 8 and I have to add one more to 6 to get to 7 and then one more to 7 to get to 8.

 

 

Another student added so that means that 8 is 2 more than 6.

 

 

Excellent mathematical thinking and explanations are happening in the Kindergarten classroom.