Beginning Number Concepts

After completing this weeks readings I found the article, "What You Need to Know About Beginning Number Concepts" to be especially interesting and applicable to the students within my particular classroom. After carefully observing strategies that students within my classroom use (as well as children within the daycare that I currently work at), I often found myself asking, I wonder why they chose to do that? or How did they come up with that answer? This article offered several answers to these questions that I have had and has made counting from a child's perspective much more feesible. For example, I noticed a 2 and half year old child at my daycare take an interest in numbers. At snack time, I asked her to count out five goldfish crackers. She completed this task with accuracy. I then, jokingly said, "Can I eat those 5 goldfish?" She responded by simply picking up the very last goldfish she had counted and offered it towards me. According to the article, this child was failing to "realize that the number they say when they count the last object in a group includes all the objects previously counted" (2). It was so interesting to be able to reflect upon this minor incidence that occurred and truly be able to capture this child's thought process within the moment. She, in essence, had "named" the last goldfish cracker 5, and thus, decided that to hand me five goldfish crackers meant to hand me the one titled 5. According to the article, this child is also failing to "recognize that the order in which we count the objects does not matter" (2). It will be extremely interesting to work with this child in the future and monitor how her thought process changes and progresses over time.

In addition, I have also noticed the concept of conservation of number come into play in a variety of situations both within my classroom and within the daycare setting. An excellent example of this occurred during arts and crafts time last week. The children were each given four cut-out hearts to make valentines for their family members. Some children's hearts were larger than others and many of the children began to complain saying "But he/she has more than I do!" The children were unable to separate what they were visually seeing with their eyes and logical reasoning. At the time I was a bit confused and was unsure why the children, all fully capable of counting, thought they were distributed unequal amounts. I now realize that children are extremely reliant upon their visual sensory field and tend to believe what their eyes tell them. Overall, I found this article to be of great importance, especially when working with children in lower elementary grades or those functioning cognitively at the k-2 level. Being able to enter into the minds of children and truly deconstruct their thought processes is essential and leads to more purposeful and tailored instruction.