Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/1077063
Junior and Senior Kindergarten Although the original Singapore Math curricular materials program were for first through fourth graders, junior and senior kindergarten students at Latin are also getting in on the action. Latin is in its second year of a three-year collaboration with the Erikson Institute, a graduate school of early childhood development based in Chicago. The collaboration, funded by a donor, allows the JK and SK teachers (as well as math interventionist Patrick Huett, Daley Chan and lower school administrators Lorraine Loomis and Julie Brooks) to meet with Erikson Institute educators and researchers three times a month for what is called a professional learning community (PLC). The PLC provides professional development and coaching for the teachers, including lesson planning, lesson observations and post-lesson debriefings to discuss what methods worked best and what needs improvement. Senior kindergarten teacher Danielle Danz explained that her young learners mostly deal with problems in a concrete way, using math manipulatives like blocks, dominoes, dice or an abacus-like tool called a rekenrek that contains two rows of 10 beads. Any pictorial or abstract problems are done with the teacher most of the time. For the first year of the collaboration, the PLCs focused on what Erikson Institute calls the nine Big Ideas (see below), which align with the Common Core. "This second year we are focusing on the language and questioning aspects," said Danz. "The teachers are focusing on "saying what we see" as an observation tool, and we are asking the students questions such as, "How do you know that?" or "Show me" in order to make their thinking visible and develop language skills that relate to math." Danz, in her third year of teaching at Latin, did not find the adjustment to Singapore Math difficult as this style of teaching Sets Patterns C A N B E C O M PA R E D / O R D E R E D A N D S O R T E D I N D I F F E R E N T W AY S S E Q U E N C E S G O V E R N E D B Y A R U L E T H AT B R I N G S P R E D I C TA B I L I T Y T H E A B I L I T Y T O U N D E R S TA N D T H E Q U A N T I T Y O F A S E T T O F I N D O U T H O W M A N Y A R E I N A C O L L E C T I O N H O W A Q U A N T I T Y C A N B E D E C O M P O S E D O R C O M P O S E D Number sense Counting Operations B I G I D E A S ERIKSON INSTITUTE'S "BIG IDEAS OF EARLY MATHEMATICS" 26 26