We discussed ways of creating the jars so the children’s number and counting skills would be challenged appropriately; enough to be stimulating but not too much to be frustrating. My student decided to stick with small items that fit easily into empty baby food jars and chose items that at first glance, seemed easy enough to count.

The children came over to the table at their leisure during free choice and my student explained the game to them.  She defined estimation and explained what they should do.  Each child estimated how many of each item were in each jar.  They then wrote the numbers on small pieces of paper and stuck them to a graph next to their names and under the items.

What I found fascinating was how the careful choice of the items created a challenging math exercise for the children.  The pom pons were large and nearly filled the jar but because two of them were red they looked almost like one, making it hard to see where one began and the other ended.  Many children counted the five pom pons as four as they were “tricked” by the red ones.

The beads were straightforward; seven beads in seven colors, easily discernible and easy to count, as evidenced by the chart above.  The marbles were harder as they rolled around the jar a lot and it was hard for the children to know which marbles they had counted and which ones needed counting.  The really challenging jar was filled with Cheerios.  First, there were 8 Cheerios in the jar, which was the biggest number they had to count to.  Second, all of the Cheerios looked the same, so it was nearly impossible for the children to know if they had counted each one once, or if they had recounted some.

These small challenges are important to consider when setting up an activity.  For children with a secure sense of number and solid counting skills, the jars did not allow the children to point to each individual item or to line them up or to separate them for counting.  Many children still use these strategies to ensure they are counting correctly and following the counting rules.  One-to-one correspondence provides a framework for counting so that children know that each separate item has a one number attached to it, no more and no less.  One bead = one and the next bead = two, and so on.  The Order Irrelevant Rule  says that as long as each item is only counted once, it doesn’t matter what order the items are counted in.  This activity challenged both of these rules which is what made it really engaging and interesting both for the teacher, the children, and the observer (me)!

Small children love guessing games.  They want a turn to guess, even if their guess is way off. They don’t care and neither should you.  The purpose of estimation in the early years is to give children a chance to guess at the quantity of something or the frequency of an occurrence.

The fun part of pumpkin seed estimation is that you can do it in stages.

First, I would have the children estimate how many seeds there are inside the pumpkin BEFORE opening it up.  That way, they can simply put a number out there as a complete guess.  You can write down their estimations on a large sheet of paper so they can see who guessed what.

Next I would open the top of the pumpkin and have each child look down into it.  That way they can get a sense of how full the pumpkin is with seeds.  Then they can estimate again.  Write down this number next to their first guess.  You can then talk about why their guesses are the same or different, bigger or smaller.

For the third stage, I would have the children scoop the seeds onto a large baking pan and then rinse them off.  That way they can see the separate seeds, without all of the pulp attached to them. Have them estimate a third time.  Write this number down next to the first two.  Are they the same or different?  Are children changing their estimations based on observations or are they still guessing?

Finally, you count the seeds.  It may be easiest to put the seeds into piles of 10, even though I wouldn’t expect the children to be able to count by tens.  They could help you count to ten several times and you could then tell them the total.  Compare this number to their estimations and discuss.

Even though children may eat the seeds at home, do NOT cook them at your center.  Seeds are a choking hazard for young children.

This Monday is April Fool’s Day- the day when playing practical jokes  is not only acceptable but expected.  There are several accepted origins to this day-from references to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to the Roman holiday of Hilaria. 

In Europe, a traditional practical joke that is played amongst school children, families and colleagues in the workplace is to try and tape a paper fish to someone’s back without being noticed.  That is why April 1st is called “April Fish Day” in France, Italy, and Belgium.

It might be fun to create a game out of the fish tradition with the children in our programs.  Rather than playing “Doggy, Doggy, Where’s my Bone?” you could adapt it to play, “Kitty, Kitty, Where’s my Fish?”.

If you are unfamiliar with this game it is quite simple.  Everyone sits in a circle, puts their hands behind their backs, and closes their eyes.  Very quietly, you give one child a fish (or a bone for the Doggy version) and once it is well hidden behind that child’s back, you ask everyone to open their eyes.  At this point, everyone says together, “Kitty, Kitty, Where’s my Fish?”  One child gets to guess who has the fish.  If s/he gets it right, you play again, and that child gets to choose where the fish goes for that round.  If s/he gets it wrong, another child gets to guess, until the fish is found.

This game involves “guessing” (or predicting), and the process of “elimination”, both great mathematical skills.  Give it a try and let us know how it goes.