Spring Places Scenes

Happy Spring, families and early educators!  Here is the Math Vitamin for the Week.

Children will connect numerals to quantity and engage in small number addition – (how many now?)

Families/Educators will guide children as they count and add small quantities and write down their stories

Places Scenes is a great activity for inviting children to integrate and apply their math knowledge. Start by providing children with: various “scenes,” character objects, and loose parts to manipulate, and a tool for identifying the numbers to use (a die, spinner, number cards, etc.).

How to play:

1. Choose a scene.
2. Roll a dice (dot or numeral) and add that number of loose parts or characters into your scene
3. Begin to tell your story. “Once there were 2 cats…” (or can put all the materials out and tell story at the end)
4. Roll again, read the numeral and add that number of loose parts or characters into your scene.  “…and then 1 dog walked by…”
5. Count up the total number of loose parts or characters in your scene. “I wonder how many pets all together?”
6. Tell a story that speaks to the two sets and the whole group. (Teachers take dictation and scaffold as needed)

Places Scenes can be simplified by only rolling once or made more challenging by rolling more than twice. Places Scenes can also be integrated with our literacy work by:

• Taking pictures of the completed story, adding the words, and sharing it with the class or family members.
• Asking children to draw their scene and then taking dictation.
• Making a Places Scenes Class Book, where these stories live.
• Using the dictated stories at Story Telling Story Acting (STSA).

Spring Stories to Enjoy: