Math focus this week is number writing, counting, estimating, and working cooperatively together at work places. Work places is not only a time to practice number sense skills, but also a time for practicing sportsmanship, patience, and kind words. If you ask any one of our Kinders, playing cooperative games can be quite challenging. As we reflected together about what makes work places hard, most friends agreed, that not always winning is hard. Students are working on playing fairly - and are also learning the effects of intentional cheating - nobody wants to play with you. As students talk about their feelings as a class, problem solve solutions, and work together each day, students are becoming more at ease when playing these sometimes difficult games. 
This week, a new game called Frog Handfuls has been added and children are practicing making mathematical estimates of a handful of frogs. Students are also recording this information on a record sheet and comparing their "estimate" to the actual amount counted. Students are also working on number writing as a class. While some students are focusing on sequencing numbers, writing numbers, others are continuing to increase their numeral recording - without backwards numbers! We plan to focus on number writing at least once a week. If you see your child writing backwards numbers, stop them, and have them rewrite the number. I like to make it fun for the child and blame the backwards numbers on the bug that crept into their pencil!
During number corner, we are focusing on counting by 10's this week, however, not by starting at 10. INQUIRE with your child how to count by 10's beginning at 26!
