Bugging Out

Today during circle time we played the "Busy Bee" game.  I placed a set of flowers labeled 9-15 on our felt board.  Then I sang the song, "Busy bee, busy bee, a flying and a buzzing, a flying and a buzzing, where can you be, where can you be?"  During the song the children closed their eyes up tight and I hid a bee behind one of the flowers.  The children then opened their eyes and took turns guessing what number flower the bee was under.  This game worked on number identification, turn taking, and being honest.  We had a few friends try to peek through their fingers to see where the bee went, this provided us with a teachable moment. 

Today during centers the children visited the two centers that they did not get to yesterday.  At my center the children followed multiple step directions to assemble a ladybug.  They drew spots on each of the ladybug's wings and then counted the total number of spots.  Some children had a few spots, some had a lot of spots, and some wrote the addition sentence that went along with their spots.  With Grandma Sue the children played a roll and cover game.  This gives them practice subitizing.  This is a fancy way of saying: look at a group of something and tell how many there are without counting each individual item.  For example: recognizing that the six dots on a die are 6 — without going 1,2,3,4,5,6.  Some of the children worked with numbered dice, some of the children worked with dice with the number words written on them.