Kindergarten PLC today...

Today our kinder team met to discuss some of the learning from our k-12 math collaborative.  It was a great morning spent sharing and learning.  We started off the day viewing some of the Kindergarten Matters videos which focus on provoking an inquiry stance in mathematics.  This video spoke to many of us, and we connected to how the teacher responded to the learning by making a personal connection with the student.  We shared some of our personal stories of how we have pulled math from an inquiry such as in my room we brought out measurement when a group of boys built their own hockey rink. 

We reflected upon the car caravan problem that Helene Colombe assigned us back in January.  We had a deep conversation about mindset in regards to how the open ended nature of the problem spoke to many of our students who may struggle mathematically.  It seemed to allow these students an entry point which spoke to their personal strenths.  As well, we noticed that some other students who excell mathematically, struggled with the open-eneded nature of the problem; they needed a 'jumping off' point to get them started.  Diane Moore, an ECE member of our team, said that this was reflective of mindset; that the students who appear to struggle academically have to be more tenacious and persistent, thus creating a 'risk taking' stance in their approach to problem solving.  We all agreed that the kindergarten program, with its inquiry based approach, allows us to differentiate our instruction and environments to speak to wide and diverse audience of leaners.  

We also spoke about our grade one visit to Mrs. Pouliot's grade one class 2 weeks ago.  While we were there, our group observed their measurement centers.  We spent 75 minutes with the class while they engaged in their 5 centers.  Some of the observations that our group made after our observations were:  the learning was more student directed and less teacher initiated in grade one, there were certain expectations that the students knew that were expected of them before they left to centers in grade one, there were learning goals established before play in grade one, and the teacher had certain curriculum expectations behind her centers compared to in kindergarten, where the play is more open-ended.  We were also very impressed by the self-regulation that we saw during center time in grade one.  We saw evidence of collaboration and cooperation in the students.  

Lastly, we ended off by talking about the Capacity Building Series:  Maximizing Student Mathematical Learning in the Early Years.  This document gives lots of great examples of responding, extending and challenging in a math stance and some helpful tips when creating a math-rich environment.  

Our group plans on meeting again soon to discuss the results of our algebraic reasoning problem.