Activities! Monsters! (nice ones) Elevators! Kangaroos! And an Picnic!
The Stuart J. Murphy Activities Newsletter comes out every other Wednesday, filled with selections from a vast and wonderful archive of Early Math & Early Childhood Ed activities.
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Hello Everybody!
It’s summer! The perfect time for a picnic! But picnics take planning. In this week’s featured I See I Learn story—Freda Plans a Picnic / Freda organiza una merienda— Freda, with some help from her mom, plans a wonderful picnic and also learns about sequencing / secuencia, an important cognitive skill.
The ability to recall events in proper order—what happens first, what comes next, and what occurs last—is important for story comprehension, mathematics, following directions, planning, and other life skills.
Of course, sequencing is more fun when there are pickles involved! Also, Pickle, Emma’s green bulldog. Scroll down for free PDF posters in English and Spanish. Woof!
The week’s featured MathStart stories are:
Monster Musical Chairs (subtracting one) Monsters know how to have fun! Do you like to play musical chairs?
Elevator Magic (subtraction) This is the most fun elevator ever!
Jump, Kangaroo, Jump! (fractions). Australian fractions are the best! A kangaroo, a kookaburra, an emu, two platypuses, three koalas, four dingoes!
Your friend, looking forward to Freda’s picnic and playing game of Monster Musical Chairs with Kangaroo and his friends,
Stuart
Mathstart is a series of 63 storybooks organized into three levels for Pre-K through Grade 4. Each story teaches a different mathematical skill.
You can buy individual books, sets by level, or a complete library! Here is list of where to find MathStart books!
• Level 1, Pre-K / Kindergarten:
Monster Musical Chairs (subtracting one)
When six monsters get together to play musical chairs, you'd better watch out! "Stomp, stomp, SNORT. Shake, shimmy, SHOUT! When the music stops, one monster is OUT!," sings the leader of the monster band. One by one the players are tagged out until there's only one left: The winner!
Knowing how many objects are left when one is taken away from a group is a first step in understanding the concept of subtraction.
• Level 2, Kindergarten / Grade 1:
Elevator Magic (subtracting)
Who knew that riding an elevator could be such an adventure? Ben meets his Mom at her office on the 10th floor, then together they make several stops on their way down. They find cows and chickens at "Farm Bank and Trust" on the 8th floor, and a traffic jam at "Speedway Delivery" three floors below. As for the "Hard Rock Candy Store," you've got to see it to believe it. Learning how to subtract using a simplified "number line" helps children understand the concept of subtraction.
• Level 3, Grades 2 - 4:
Jump, Kangaroo, Jump! (fractions)
It's Field Day at camp. The 12 campers—a kookaburra, an emu, two platypuses, three koalas, four dingoes and Kangaroo—can't wait for the games to start. The group divides into halves, then thirds and finally fourths to make equal-sized teams (6, 4 and 3 each) for the big competitions. But it's each camper for himself in the long jump, which is Kangaroo's personal favorite.
Seeing the relationship between division and fractions is an important step in understanding fractions.
ATTENTION TEACHERS! 20% off on book sets on the I See I Learn store!
I See I Learn is a series of 16 stories that follow the adventures of the children in Miss Cathy’s class at Ready, Set Pre-K in See-and-Learn City (see map).
Each story focuses on a different social, emotional, health & safety and cognitive skill important for success in school and in life. For Pre-K / Kindergarten.
Freda organiza una merienda (securncia)
La mamá de Freda le dice que puede invitar a sus amigos a una merienda. Hay tantas cosas que hacer, desde empacar la cesta con la comida hasta recoger y limpiar. ¡Todo es parte de la diversión!
La habilidad de recordar los pasos en orden - que pasa primero, lo siguiente, y lo que pasa al final - es muy importante para la comprensión de cuentos, matemáticas, seguir las instrucciones, organizar, y otras destrezas de la vida.
FREE PDF POSTER
Freda Plans a Picnic (sequencing)
Freda's mom says she can invite her friends to picnic. There is so much to do, from packing the picnic basket to cleaning up. All the steps add up to a fun-filled time!
The ability to recall events in proper order–what happens first, what comes next, and what occurs last is important for story comprehension, mathematics, following directions, planning, and other life skills.
FREE PDF POSTER
Do you have a story or a question? Please send me an email!