Yesterday my student set up an activity at one of the tables that children could work on during free choice time.  She had cut out paper t-shirts in 3 colors and in 3 sizes.  There were markers and glue with a variety of things that could be glued to the t-shirts.  As the children were sitting down, she asked them if they wanted a little t-shirt or a big t-shirt and if they wanted yellow, blue, or green.  At first, each of the children simply asked for a “big, yellow t-shirt, or a small, green t-shirt.”  The last child asked for a “big, blue t-shirt” so my student took out a big, blue t-shirt and handed it to him.  He said, “No, I want a big one.”  She responded with, “This is a big blue t-shirt.”  This went back and forth a couple more times until he pointed to one of the other children and said, “Like his.”

Lo and behold, there were 3 sizes of t-shirts: small, medium and large.  Since he didn’t have the vocabulary to explain what he wanted, he used the vocabulary that was given to him: Big and Small.  However, these choices didn’t work because he wanted “the biggest” t-shirt which only works if there are varying sizes available.  Big and small leaves out a whole category – medium.  When we discussed this after my observation, my student knew that she was only using the two adjectives, but thought it was preferable since the children already know Big and Small and she was confident that they could describe their preferences with these two categories.

We talked about how children build knowledge based on what they already know.  If the children already have cognitive structures in place for Big and Small then it makes sense to introduce another concept that builds on those.  I suggested that she could use Small, Smaller, and Smallest to describe the variations, or Big, Bigger, and Biggest which would also work.  She could go back to the original idea and use Small, Medium, and Large since those would be the accurate terms for sizes of clothing.  It doesn’t really matter as long as the relationship between the sizes is emphasized.

This is a good example of how opportunities arise at all times of the day to support early math concepts.  I am so glad I was there to see it.