Kirsten Blomster

Foundations of Early Childhood Education

ECHD

4/29/15

Observation 4
 I. Observation 1:
Math

II. Grade:
Kindergarten

III. Students:
3 girls, 4 boys

IV. Setting:
Kindercare
Multi-Age (3-4 years old) classroom, 7 students, 1 head teacher.

V. Pre Observation
I conducted this observation to analyze the teaching of math in a early childhood
education classroom. I also planned to identify any improvements that could be
made. I selected a kindergarten class from the Kindercare learning center. I set
aside a two-hour block to use to observe and form a running record. To better
prepare myself for this observation, I conducted some research about instructional
mathematics.

VI. Data:
Observations were conducted on April 23, 2015.

Upon entering the classroom, I noticed several aspects of math around the
classroom environment
o Posters of math problems line the walls
o A count of how many days they have been in school so far lines the
center molding
o A poster with different amounts of different objects, and the
amount of the object labeled
Their first math activity of the afternoon is writing problems out on a
board and solving them
o They use counters
o They learn to use their fingers
As they put their white-boards away they sing a clean-up song
Next the students all gather on the carpet and play freeze dance
They all sit down on the carpet and the teacher asks them questions about
the calendar, and the students all take turns answering. The teacher does
not tell them, she has them keep making educational guesses until they get
it right. They also have a different pattern piece that cycles every four
days. They have to identify what the next piece is each day. Calendar
aspects:
o The month
o The day of the month
 o The day of the week
o The season
o The year
o Upcoming holidays in that month
o Day of the school year
They then go over their countdown to Halloween, and subtract today from
that countdown to find how many days are left now
One student is having difficulty. In response, the teacher says encouraging
things and helps him arrive at the answer
They identify what day of the week yesterday is and what day tomorrow is
The teacher asks them to look out the window to identify the weather.
They say the pledge of allegiance
They get up and dance to the gummy bear song
The next math activity that they do is a worksheet
o
When the students ask questions, the teacher helps them arrive at the
answer themselves rather than just answering it outright

VII. Analysis:
In this classroom, math is taught in a way so that the students have fun while
learning. This helps the students love to learn from an early developmental stage.
The art/classwork that covers the walls allows the students to be proud of their
accomplishments. Posters of math problems add to the students understanding of
math. The students are always encouraged to learn as much as they possibly can.
Writing out math problems and solving them on their own with the use of
counters and/or their fingers, helps them not only learn math skills such as
addition, subtraction and counting, but also practices how to write out the
numbers properly. When they clean up, they sing a song doing so. This forms
good tidying habits. Playing freeze dance/dancing the gummy bear song (etc.)
helps the students take a break from learning to get their sillies out, so that they
can refocus for the next lesson. Going over the calendar covers a variety of
aspects of math. They learn the days of the week, the months of the year, and the
seasons. They learn pattern forming by identifying the pattern piece for that day.
They learn what an ordinal number is and how to know what today is. They gain
knowledge of the year and how it progresses. By going over the upcoming
holidays of that month, students learn about these holidays and why they occur.
The countdown to the next holiday also helps with their subtraction skills. When a
student is having trouble or cant quite figure something out, the teacher helps
them arrive at he answer themselves rather than just telling them the answer. This
allows the students to practice problem solving and spelling on their own. Doing
things themselves makes learning more efficient.

VIII. Recommendations:
Overall, the math in this kindergarten classroom is satisfactory. I dont think that
enough math is introduced in the lessons. This classroom is mostly ELA oriented,
 and doesnt contain enough aspects of math. I would incorporate some geometry
and measurement/data lessons into the curriculum.

IX. Citations:

Mathematics Standards. (n.d.). Retrieved April 22, 2015, from

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/