Beautiful Stuff

Our beautiful stuff inquiry in math has been a great success! Students have been hard at work organizing the items into groups based on different attributes.  They first put the items into baskets based on general attributes such as “toys,” “metal things,” “buttons” or “beads.” Then they worked with a partner to sort each basket further, based on specific attributes.  Students learned that there are many ways they can sort the items into sets and subsets. For example, the set of buttons can be sorted into subsets by color, size, shape or by how many holes they have. After we collected and sorted our stuff multiple times, students had the opportunity to work with a partner to count all the stuff.  Counting large quantities (between 20 – 100 of one item) poses challenges for our young mathematicians as they try to keep track of which items they have counted, remember the order of the numbers, work with a partner and record their final count. You can have your child practice this at home by having him/her count a large group of things.  Maybe pennies, or pieces of dried pasta or beans. Toys can also be fun to count. How many Pokemon cards or Matchbox cars does your child have? Count to find out!

Join us tomorrow on Family Friday (December 7th from 9:20 am – 10:00 am) for a culminating activity to this unit. We will be using our beautiful stuff to create a winter art project. Hope to see you there!