The Kindergartners in Mrs.McCloskey and Mrs.Cassis’ math class are having fun and working hard on their addition and subtraction unit. For a majority of five year olds the concept of addition and subtraction has not been introduced to them yet, but here at Nysmith we are proud to say that some of our Kindergarten students are already working at a First and Second grade math level! When you walk into Mrs.McCloskey’s and Mrs.Cassis’ classroom you’ll catch the students using board games, computer games, workbook activities, and playdough to reinforce their newly learned math skills.

The classroom has four 15 minute rotating workstations, where the students are partaking in a series of different activities related to the unit they’re currently working on. Two of the four workstations are teacher led which provides students with a more personal and hands-on learning experience. “Small classes with two teachers means that teachers have the time to differentiate the lessons to meet the needs of the children. Nysmith reading and math classes have 3-4 grade levels of instruction in each class, that level of differentiation is not possible without low student to teacher ratios,” Ken Nysmith. The students in the class are all working on different grade levels of math. The Kindergarten group is working on addition with missing addends, the First grade level group is working on subtraction, and the Second grade group is working on number concepts, mostly with place value. Each group is very fluid, and they move around to different levels once they’re ready to.

At one of the teacher led workstations, the students are working with Mrs.Cassis on a hands-on activity called Subtraction Smash. Subtraction Smash is a game where the students are playfully rolling around pieces of playdough and smashing them with their fists, all in the name of math! “The purpose of this game is to go over subtracting numbers from the number ten. During this activity we have the kids roll out ten pieces of dough and have them put a piece on top of every number from one to ten. When the student rolls their dice and they land on a number, they’ll smash whatever number they landed on, on their paper. For example, if the dice lands on the number three the student will write that number on their piece of paper and smash three of their playdough balls to indicate that ten minus three equals seven since there are seven balls still intact,” said Mrs. Cassis. At the second teacher led workstation the students are quietly working alongside Mrs.McCloskey in their Go Math workbook.

The Kindergarteners also have the freedom to access to the computers in the classroom to play different math games or go over a lesson that has been assigned from the Go Math website based off of what they’re learning. Giving young children the opportunity to work independently helps build their confidence and self esteem, and it gives them a sense of freedom. At Nysmith we believe that catering to a student’s individual educational needs prepares them for a successful future, and we pride ourselves in doing this from the very beginning of our students’ Nysmith careers.