Kindergarten Math

I was checking out Maria Miller's recommendations for kindergarten math one day and realized that J-jo has already mastered many of what Maria states as goals for K math.

She states that: 

The goal of kindergarten mathematics is to prepare children for first grade math. Please see below a list of objectives and goals for kindergarten math:

• To count by rote at least to 20, but preferably a little beyond.

• The concepts of equality, more, and less

• To count backwards from 10 to 0.

• To recognize numbers 

• To be able to write numbers (He can trace them and write about 4 or 5 of them without guidelines.)

• To recognize basic shapes

• to understand up, down, under, near, on the side, etc. (basic directions)

• To have a very basic idea of addition and subtraction (not sure just how basic she means, but since J-jo can add and subtract with manipulatives up to ten I am considering this mastered.)

• It also helps to expose the student to two-digit numbers. (We have worked on the teens and tens board and do place value when we get around to doing calendar, which has only been 45 days this school year.)

I like her game suggestions (at that same link under "Counting") and J-jo and I have been playing the two domino games listed there. One involves making domino trains (a matching activity) and one involves adding the dots on both halves of your domino and seeing who has the most.  I'll let you visit her site for the directions.

Below, J-jo counts his dots (he saw it automatically as 5) and triumphantly snatched up my tile which only had 2.

This is all to say, that even though I worry about J-jo not being like Bear who desired to sit all day with Mommy to do learning activities, it seems that the 5 minutes here and there that we have been sneaking in have been very effective in teaching him.  Recently, he is requesting lessons more and more.  It's an exciting change, but they are still very short and only as long as his attention desires them.

Here's some other things he has enjoyed.

I leave the hundred board as below, with some squares filled in, and the rest a scrambled mess.

 He comes in and fills it in.  It usually takes a few days.  This particular day, I had the rods out to show him how to build some of the numbers. 

He loves Rosie's Education Unboxed videos and though we don't watch them often enough, he remembered seeing one of her girls doing this and was determined to follow suit.

I think we may play with time and money next as he likes to tell me what "time" it is.  (As in, "Mommy, I'm tired because it is 7:40," or "it must be lunch because it is "11:40." - There's almost always a 40 when he tells time:)