I had the pleasure in interviewing a very energetic teacher by the name of Ms. April Hast.
Ms. April has been an elementary teacher for over five years now. She has worked with kindergarten, first, and second grade children. In wanting to take a break from that realm of education. April, embarked on a new adventure. She is now a lead Preschool teacher at Primrose private schools. I was able to observe April in action.
I happened to visit during small group center time. Ms. April and her co-teacher had this arrangement nicely setup. Ms. April sat a table with a group of children and they were learning about dinosaurs. I asked her what the name of the activity was. Eagerly, she called the activity “Dino Math.” I was interested in the object of the game. The children had to match the correct number of dinosaur counters to the amount of stickers they saw. It was neat to see the children interact with one another while staying engaged in the game. In the end of the game, if they completed their task; they all got to choose one sticker of their choice. I really liked this approach.
I further asked her about other math activities she implemented with the children. In circle time, she has the kids stand tall like soldiers and recite their numbers 1-30. I got a demonstration of this. How cute it was. Another activity she used was the Greg and Steve Cd, Kids in action going on a bear hunt. Ms. April, explained that the skills they encountered through this was spatial relations. The kids had use their listening ears to go up, over, under Etc… patterning cards is always great visuals for the children to learn while using their memory recognition. A unique concept that Ms. April brought to my attention that anything can be turned into math. For example, sorting vegetables from fruits into their appropriate bins. Also, mentioned was that she is better able to help children that struggle with math; a challenge that she has had to overcome on