Skip to main content

Doing Laundry in Pre-K



By Ashley Estes, RAFT Fellow
 
RAFT is one of the best places to find some amazing premade kits and learning tools. These kits are great and can be used across many grade levels. As a 1st grade teacher, I use them weekly in my classroom. In this article, I would love to explain one kit in particular that could be easily used with students from Pre-K to 1st grade. This fantastic kit is called, Laundry Math. This clever and adorable kit comes with sheets that have clotheslines drawn on them, pictures of shirts and pants, 2 sets of numbers 1-10, and Velcro for the items to stick on. This kit helps with counting, 1-1 correspondence, number identification, problem solving, adding, and subtracting. After laminating and placing the Velcro on the pieces, your students are ready to go. The basic idea of this activity kit is students place pieces of clothing on the clothesline and after counting the items; they place the correct number on the sheet (see pictures below).

As stated earlier, in my opinion, I believe this kit would be great for Pre-K to 1st grade classrooms. I am lucky enough to work in a school that has a Pre-K classroom, so I decided to pass along these kits to the teachers and see how they would implement them. I could not wait to see how this would play out, especially since I teach 1st grade.

 The following paragraph was written by the Pre-K teachers to explain how they felt about using this kit in their classroom.

 “This activity was used during our morning workshops. I particularly liked this activity because it didn’t require a lot of direct instruction. The children were able to figure out what they needed to do. I found this activity very useful because it helped the children make the connection that numbers represent the number of objects.  It also helped with identifying the numbers.” 


This was so great to read and I was thrilled with how well this kit fit within their curriculum. This made me feel that Kindergarten classrooms could also benefit from using this kit. As a 1st grade teacher, this kit would be wonderful to help my students who need extra help with addition and I would also use it for subtraction as well. I personally love this kit because it is so interactive and it can be used with many different mathematical concepts. I hope you consider using this kit in your classroom and remember you are able to use these to your advantage and tweak them to fiit your classrooms and the needs of your students.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science fairs: Nurturing the 21st century thinker

3D Tessellation model A bespectacled 6th grader enthusiastically explains ‘efficiency of 3D space tessellations’ with myriad equations and handmade tessellation patterns to address the needs of the packaging, storing, shipping and construction industry. Another middle school student, was inspired by his little brother’s telescope and built a simple vacuum chamber using a PVC pipe with a microphone and a speaker on both ends to find out how sound travels on Mars! This 8th grader from Granada Islamic School used an oscilloscope his mother found at an auction to measure the sounds. “I poke around and find junk to build my projects. It’s fun.” Science projects today have become fun for many students as they use more hands on activities to experiment and understand concepts. These two middle school students were among 996 participants at the recent Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship , where RAFT was one of the special judges. Moenes Iskarous, President, S...
18 comments
Read more

Plastic to art that’s fantastic!

With Valentine’s Day round the corner, one of RAFT ’s upcoming weekend workshops – ‘Shrink Art Fun’ shows you how to recycle plastic into awesome shrink art! This year learn how to make some meaningful gifts using donated plastic material, available at RAFT in the form of trays and take-out containers, thus preventing them from ending up in a landfill.  Shrink plastics encourage creativity, and can be used to supplement a variety of classroom activities.  Students can create models, manipulatives, and displays. They can make maps, pins, book report characters, and even cards!  But there is also a science behind this hands on art form! Says Instructor Georgina Patterson, who has been in the education field for 40 years, “The science behind the shrinkage process is a chemistry lesson in itself, and the excitement young children get when they watch the plastic change size in the oven is worth the effort!” The base material consists of thin, flexible polystyrene plast...
3 comments
Read more

Turn Daylight Savings Time into a Teachable Moment

Don’t lose sleep over this, but Daylight Savings Time (DST) is here! On March 11th it's time to set your clocks forward and say goodbye to one hour of sleep! There’s no time to waste! Make this year’s Daylight Savings Time an engaging and meaningful experience for you and your students. RAFT has plenty of ideas to help you and your students get ready for DST:  “ Time for Shadows ” shows you how to quickly assemble an equatorial sundial that you can quickly adjust for daylight savings time! Learn about sun positions and shadows with drinking straws, a protractor, a compass, and a CD! Use a view binder cover, a watch, a paperclip, straws, the compass, and other easily accessible resources to create a “ View Binder Sundial ” similar to the one our forefathers used to tell time before clocks were invented! Create a sand timer (based on the concept of an hourglass), and learn how to measure time with “Sand Timer Primer.” Why do we have Daylight Savings Time?...
Post a Comment
Read more