back when i volunteered in girlygirl's kindy class on St. Patrick's day, i was yet again impressed with one of the seemingly effortless lessons her teacher presented. everyone was engaged, enthusiastic, and respectful - an indicator of a truly great teacher, in my opinion. so there they were, with a pitcher full of green water and vessels of varying sizes. they talked about which one would hold more, less, the same, then they measured and discussed their findings. volume. great stuff.
we've since been revisiting estimates in passing - cone vs. cup, for example (all in the interest of higher learning, i assure you).
fast forward to yet another rainy afternoon. enter one empty egg carton and one box of rainbow cheerios. there was sorting by color into the carton, then visual estimates were made (most, least, same) and recorded. the o's were then transferred to glasses for another view, and the second round of estimates were recorded.
then the counting began - one kiddo chose to count individually while the other worked in sets of 5. (counting by 5's is way cool with the kindy crowd.) and they even concluded that it's really easy to lose count when you count individually. had i suggested that, it would have been met with full on hands-on-hips-i'm-gonna-do-it-my-way-so-there. so i let them figure it out while i watched, sipped coffee and marveled at the ranunculus. not a bad deal, mind you.
in the end, we reviewed the data with a few woo-hoo's and an ah-ha moment. and, of course, there was crafting. as well as nibbling. you see, apparently wearing your snack makes life so much more efficient. please don't let on that them convincing me to buy the fruity cheerios was part of my master plan. xoxo
