Algebra.

Oh how I love working in a K-3 school…

This morning, our math lesson was a dice game where sprouts worked in pairs. Each child got a pair of dice, rolled them, and then had to total their dice. Whoever had the higher number got a chip. There were ten chips in each cup, when all the chips were gone, they were tallied and a winner identified. The tricky part was we’re working on 'counting on' as opposed to just counting all the dots on the dice. 'Counting on' can be tricky for kindergarteners…

We worked all morning during our math time and even played again in the afternoon… many got it, but many struggled too.

I also popped into my dear friend Mrs. F.’s room. Mrs. F. teaches third grade and her students are also our reading buddies. When I opened the classroom door, the room was totally silent. The boys and girls were all sitting and working in their math journals. I looked at the board and saw a problem much like this:

In third grade. Coming from my classroom, this looked downright like college algebra to me. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent guy and I had to look at the problem for a few moments before I realized how to solve it… not only were her students solving it correctly, I was told by more than a few that this was ‘easy peasy, lemon squeezy’ and felt even dumber than before… are all the hugs and hand holding turning my brain to mush?

I turned to go and was eager to return to kindergarten.  Hats off to Mrs. F. and her third graders. They are doing some amazing stuff up in that second floor classroom. I’ll stick with 'counting on' and counting to one hundred… hey, we all have our roles to play.